Cultural awareness

Cultural awareness

There are different definitions of cultural awareness. I will explain Ferdinand Tönnies and Hofstede's theory on cultural awareness in the following blog and give my personal opinion to it.

Ferdinand Tönnies is searching the difference between Community and Society. He focus on the inner will of people. In his opinion every community and society have a collective will. Tönnies made researches about how to express your opinion freely and how to change political or social actions.

Hofstede’s theory on cultural awareness means that every employer should understand the difference in every culture and how it affects the working life at the office or even worldwide.
These six categories are defining culture in Hofstede's theory:

      1. Power Distance Index

2   2. Collectivism vs. Individualism

3   3.Uncertainty Avoidance Index

     4.   Femininity vs. Masculinity

5   5.   Short-Term vs. Long-Term Orientation

     6.  Restraint vs. Indulgence

       

       The experience I got with living in Finland for some time gave me the opportunity to compare those two theories with my own impression. I agree that every society have a collective will. I could experience this "collective will" in the Student Village I lived and also at university, more precisely at some group tasks. Every member of the group has the same goal and it doesn't matter where they came from or how they look like.

      The categories Hofstede defined are very central. It depends pretty much on the nationality; Collectivism is not that common in the central Europe countries than in more eastern Europe countries for example. I realized it also while speaking to other exchange students. In my opinion this is a very excited topic and I know you can learn so much from other cultures if you allow to open your mind.

Moikka - Kuku sinä on?

Moikka - Kuku sinä on?

Moikka!

My name is Nora and I am from Switzerland. I am 22 years old. Currently, I am doing an exchange semester in Turku, in the southern part of Finland.
I am studying Social Services at the University of Applied Sciences in the faculty of Health and Well-being. At my home university I am attending the university of Teacher Education. My focus is to become a primary teacher.

I enrolled for the courses Get Finternational, Finnish for Exchange Students, Cultural Experiences, Client-Oriented Social and Health Services, Multicultural & community work and I am also doing a practical training in client work, more precisely in the primary school called Luostarivuoren koulun Martin yksikkö.

During my stay abroad in Turku I will tell you more about the differences between Switzerland and Finland, my experiences and the most important things to know. 

I hope you will enjoy reading my blog!

New Year, new home

New Year, new home

Right after New Year’s Eve I had to take my flight from Switzerland to Turku. It was a hard goodbye. So I came to Turku the 1^st of January 2020. 

I had a stopover in Amsterdam for three hours and had another flight from there to Helsinki. By train I went from Helsinki to Turku. The journey took me around 14 hours. I was glad that another girl from my home university also came to Turku to study for the spring term so we could do the journey together.

The first night we shared a cosy Airbnb in Turku because we couldn't move into our student housing because of an official holiday in Finland. We haven't got a long rest because the next day the orientation day already has started in the early morning. 

The first two to three weeks were really busy and challenging. I had to organize a lot of different things like the bus card, membership for the gym, the schedule for university and also my practical training place and move to my apartment in Student Village. 

The most difficult part was actually to get the information from my university in Turku about my courses. At the moment I have arrived in Turku till the end of January I haven't got any information about the courses, like at what day they or on what time they will be. It made it really difficult to schedule my stay here. I also felt kind of disappointed because I arrived so early and all the courses started around one to two months later. 

I had a lot of time to finish tasks for my home university, exploring the city, get to know new people and for doing a few trips which was also nice. But if you are also study at the University of Applied Sciences in Turku, I would recommend to move to Turku not that early and just skip the orientation days. There were a few information but you can also get it on another way. 

The first month I also needed to get familiar with the city and everything. In the early beginning of February I felt like I finally had arrived in Turku and my new home.

Turku - Åbo

Turku - Åbo

Turku is located in the region of Southwest Finland next to the Baltic Sea. It's a popular city to live and study. Approximately 20% of Turku's residents are students. Around 184'000 residents are living in Turku. 

You can go almost everywhere in Turku by foot or bike. In the beautiful city you can find plenty of restaurants, shops, bars, historical attractions and other free time activities. Around Turku you can explore the famous Finish Saunas and an incredible nature for example the Archipelago.

In Turku there are four different university: University of Turku, Åbo Akademy University, Turku University of Applied Sciences and Novia University of Applied Science. All the campuses are located near city center. In Turku are studying more than 40'000 higher education students and over 4'000 international degree students or exchange students every year. 

Before 1919 today's Finland belonged to Sweden and Russia. Turku was Swedish territory. That is the reason for the Swedish speaking residents in Turku. Nowadays, 5.2% of Turku's residents speak Swedish as their mother tongue. The city is called Åbo in Swedish and Turku in Finish. A lot of shops, signs and other things are written in Swedish.

Housing Opportunities in Turku

Housing Opportunities in Turku

There are two different Housing options in Turku for exchange students: Retrodorm and The Student Village Foundation of Turku (TYS). In TYS you can also choose between a Shared apartment in Iltakajo (which is located around 6km away from the city center of Turku but not far away from a beautiful lake and nature) or Small studio apartment with shared kitchen (you will share it with 10 habitants in your floor) in the Student Village West. I decided to live in my own small studio apartment with shared kitchen. All those information you can find on the website from TUAS (https://www.tuas.fi/en/study-tuas/exchange-students/accommodation/).
For getting a housing offer you can create an account and sign in at the TYS platform (https://asukassivusto.tys.fi/en/login/?url=%2fen%2fdefault.aspx). After you have except the housing offer you will get an apartment there. 

In Student Village West, in Finnish Turun Ylioppilaskyläsäätiö, are living a lot of young people. Mostly, they are students. Some residential blocks do have their own Sauna. Inhabitants can use it 4 times per moths for free. There are also 3 laundries in different houses. But unfortunately, there is always a lack of laundries. You should book it one week in advance. 

Suchergebnisse

Webergebnis mit Sitelink

Living in a new culture

Living in a new culture

I used to travel quite a lot and already saw different countries as well as cultures. Finland is in Europe as well as Switzerland, so there is not a really big difference between it. But the culture is still a bit different. 

The thing which I miss the most here is the way people say hello. In Switzerland we use to give a hug or a kiss and here you aren’t that close to each other. It is something which makes a distance between people. The people in Finland are kind of cold and they show not so many emotions. For me that’s a big difference and I kind of miss it sometimes. 

Also it’s hard to get in contact with other people because Fins are shy and don’t start to make a conversation. On the other side the life here is so much more relaxed. It seems that people are not so much in a hurry and they are just enjoying what they have.

Living costs in Turku

Living costs in Turku 

The living costs in Turku are less than in Switzerland. The monthly rent for my apartment is EUR 358.55. Groceries are cheaper than in Switzerland, but alcohol is more expensive. The cheapest bottle of wine is around EUR 10.- and beer is the same price compared to my home country. 

For grocery shopping I spent around € 260.- each month. The investments for my apartment's decoration as well as cleaning equipment were around € 160.- in total. The monthly card for the public transport "Föli" costs € 40.-.