Why Our Finnish Courses Are So Awesome

To reflect on school in the States for a moment, our class schedules typically run from Monday through Friday, with classes M-W-F, which last an hour, and T-Th, for an hour and half. They last all semester, minus a class or two at the end if you’re lucky. The average UNCA student will take approximately 16 hours a semester, which translates into about 2 or 3 of these classes per day. If the class meets three times a week, you are allowed no more than 3 absences, regardless of excuse (excluding serious medical or family issues); if twice a week, no more than 2.

Needless to say, I thought something was seriously wrong the first time I logged into Korppi (our OnePort-equivalent online course management system), and registered for a class – its beginning and ending dates were 20.1.09 - 23.1.09 – January 20th through 23rd. Except… that’s it!!! The class meets four times, and is over. FOUR TIMES. Over four days. For four hours each day, but still!

This is, of course, not the way all courses in Finland work. After speaking with our tutor and goddess-of-all-Finnish-knowledge, Laura, Elizabeth and I discovered that we have just been lucky enough to land in the right program (CIHD, Current Issues in Human Development) in the right department (Psychology) during the right time (now), so that many of our courses are specially-arranged with guest lecturers from around the world, meaning that the schedules are… well, compact. Even better, any other Psych courses that we’re taking are from English textbooks read on our own time (we only have to sign up for exams, WHICH WE CAN TAKE MORE THAN ONCE), and Survival Finnish classes only last until the end of February.

Helloooo travel time!!!