Semester on the Arctic Circle Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The Arctic Studies Program is taught by researchers rather than professors, so the courses have a lot of overlapping content as instructors develop their own lectures without much communication among themselves and teaching can be of widely varying quality. The organization of the courses within the program cover a diverse range of Arctic issues with a heavy focus on political science and anthropology. I found science classes to be less rigorous than expected, since few students come to the program with a natural sciences background. The final 5 ECTS credits are open to take other courses at the university. Most ASP students took art and design or Finnish language/culture courses to satisfy the credit requirement. I found my Finnish language classes to be my most difficult of the semester (unsurprisingly).

On-site administration of your program

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Housing for international students at the university is arranged through the DAS housing agency, which places exchange students together in two buildings about a 40 minute walk/15 minute bike ride to the university and a 30 minute walk /10 minute bike to the city center/Arktikum, where many ASP courses are held. I felt that this facilitated community among international students, but made it much more challenging to interact with Finnish students. The apartments are nothing special, but very affordable. As with most Finnish apartments, there are also weekly open sauna hours in both buildings.

Lunches at the university are very cheap with a student card and of good quality. There are a few other locations in town where you can get discounted lunches, but not near the Arktikum!

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

I felt very disappointed to have met so few Finns while living in Rovaniemi. Especially while spending so much time learning the language, I found very few opportunities to use it outside the grocery store (where it is not even particularly useful). The Finnish Friend program that the university organizes seems to help with this a bit, and I wish I had participated had I known how difficult it would be to get out of the international bubble.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Make sure to get international travel insurance (the residence permit application requires it—I used SIP). It's also handy to make sure it covers countries where you might travel, especially Sweden and Norway.

Rovaniemi is a very safe city. It's not the sort of place where you worry about walking around alone at night (which is good considering darkness is in no short supply in Lapland!).

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

Education is free in Finland and student housing is very reasonable. However, Finland has a high standard of living and costs reflect that. It's noticeably cheaper than some other Nordic countries, but still high compared to the U.S.. Student cards in Finland can get you very cheap meals at the university, however, and bus and train tickets are discounted at 50% which makes travel quite easy.

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

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• Apartment

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• International Students

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• International Students

• Location
• Access to resources of the Arktikum/Arctic Center
• Outdoor recreation opportunities

• Minimizing repeat information in lectures
• Fewer, better instructors
• Stronger natural science offerings