Back to school

After a wonderful trip to Kyrgyzstan (more on that later) it's been time to get back to the university life here. Not that I really feel like a part of the Petrozavodsk State University. It's just so different. Practically, it's like school. Most people start university at 17 and finish with their Bachelor's degree at 21. I know that at 24 I'm not that much older than these students but still, I feel old. In many ways I feel like I'm back to high school. We sit in class rooms where everyone has their own usual seat. All the stereotypes from school are there. There are the pretty girls and the study-hard people. There are the butch guys sitting in the last row. There's the quiet girl with greasy hair who's talking to no one and is drawing dragons in her notebook. Classroom walls have project posters made by students by cutting pictures from magazines. Desks have drawings and writing on them.

Of course, I can talk about my faculty only, of Political and Social Sciences. There students study with their group (class) and have little choice in their studies. There's a timetable on the board for each group and they follow it. Lecturers teach facts, mainly. They speak from their notes or from memory and usually don't provide sources. On the lectures I've attended, there hasn't been any power points or hand outs. Students make notes in their notebooks or on tablets. Students have long days at uni and a lot of homework. They work a lot harder than what I do at home.

No sign of "academic freedom" or the "society of researchers" we so often talk about in Finnish universities. (Of course, I have no idea what's really going on, I'm practically an outsider dropping in on a few lectures every now and then and only understand a bit more than half of what's being said.) For our universities, teaching critical thinking is the main goal. Here, it's mainly teaching facts. I have to say, though, the best might be somewhere in the middle. Sure, anyone can learn facts from Wikipedia. Still, as a Finnish uni student, I'm often ashamed of how little I know (about the EU for example).