The Helsinki Diaries .2

My classes have definitely started at The University of Helsinki. I thought the workload at my home university was heavy but it is nothing compared to this! I had planned to get this post done on Thursday last week and it is now Tuesday and I have just managed to find the time to get it written! 

My last post was much more social life orientated but, just as I’d hoped, I have a bit more academic/law studies experience to write about now! 

First of all, the structure of the course is so different from back in England! For example I am taking Nordic Contract Law as my first module, and we have a lecture every single day for two weeks, then an exam, then that module is done for good (unless you have to resit but let’s not think about that right now). This is a huge difference to back at home where you take the module simultaneously with the others and then do exams in one big chunk at the end. I’m not sure if this new way of doing it will be great for me as I get really stressed around exams. This will either be great because I will avoid that bulk of stress around May/June, but it could also mean I am a nervous wreck all year long, keep reading this series to find out! 

Secondly, there is a lot more mandatory reading! I know that most law courses wherever you go are quite literature heavy so I am not too surprised by this, but the sheer volume of everything you are expected to learn outside of the lectures is quite overwhelming to begin with, but as the lateness of this blog shows, I have been cracking on with it! 

Finally, studying is a lot more self motivated here; with all the mandatory reading, there is a sense of wanting to know the information rather than having to learn it for learning’s sake which I really like as I am finding myself being more productive having self directed learning rather than having to fill out sheets and sheets in preparation for a seminar (which we don’t seem to have here but watch this space because I’m not sure what I have next semester yet). Pro tip: This is not to do with Helsinki specifically but I have found that listening to the soundtrack of my favourite video game series really helps me to concentrate when I have to read a lot of information

I think I am adjusting well to living here, apart from how expensive everything is, there haven’t been any major culture shocks except from the use of squared paper not lined (???????) and I think I will have a really good year if everything continues as it has started!

If you have any questions, anything you’d like us to address in future posts, comments, thoughts, queries etc then feel free to get in touch as always @almostlawyers on Twitter or thealmostlawyers@gmail.com ! 

Kiitos!

Lauren