Introduction
Dear exchange students,
Your fellow students at the department of Political Science and International Relations welcome you to the University of Tampere! Tampere is a relatively small town of slightly more than two hundred thousand inhabitants. Nevertheless, Tampere is not a boring place to live and study in. We have two universities, few highschools in the city and in its immediate vicinity and the student life is rather vivid especially during academic year.
When Finnish students begin their studies in the university, they make their first contact with academic life through the student organisation of their major subject. The student organization of our department is called Iltakoulu (Nightschool in English). It is an association that gathers together everyone – studying either political sciences or international relations, side or main subject – for many different purposes. I like to see Iltakoulu as gemeinschaft type small society where people know each other and interaction is based on a feeling of belonging together.
We arrange parties, game evenings, sports and culture happenings, excursions in Finland and abroad, discussion nights, movie nights, dancing nights, sauna nights, sunny days, snowy days… you name it, you got it! One’s own activity is quite essential: we do what we want. Sometimes it gets down to drinking, but don’t be fooled. It’s not few occasions that it gets down to thinking. Now you can worry. Following the teachings of Ozzy: “I was drinking when I should have been thinking” (Good Times).
It probably will be mainly through Iltakoulu that you can get to know better all the finnish students that you see on a every day basis in the uni. Iltakoulu is the means of knowing your fellow students and for you a way of getting an inside picture of the country you hopefully will fall in love with.
