To be forwarded, not anonymously:
Some thoughts from the perspective of a first year student with earlier studies in software engineering, or information processing science as the official translation goes, hereby referred as SE. Most of what what I would say has been said already in earlier discussion so I will only highlight a few points in a comparative sense. The most important points are in the latter half so please don't feel bad about skipping most of this wall of text!
Firstly, I would highlight that the software engineering department is huge compared to us with an intake of around 200 students a year. As a result combined with harsh economic problems the whole degree up to BSc feels like a total mess. Thus the teaching is very lecture oriented with very little sense of academia in it. This is where our department really shines: we are immersed to an environment where independent thought and reasoning is a must from the very first year, aside from the chemistry department courses shadowing it a bit - they have room for very little creativity. Tuomo's brilliant exams in Metabolism I are a good example. One really has to understand the subject and make the connections to be able to answer the questions, promoting what I feel is the right kind of learning instead of remembering a book line by line and answering "What does person X say about subject Y in book Z?"
On the subject of disappearing/transferring students we are not doing so bad as one might get a sense of. In SE the amount of students who shift to full time work (the industry literally absorbs them out), transfer elsewhere or simply disappear is staggeringly high even in relation to the intake. It is more of a hub for entry into university than we for entry into medical school ever was. I unfortunately can not find any statistics to back this up at the moment - this is educated guessing/feeling. Our education system gives perhaps far too much leeway too little high school tutoring for drifting around without purpose, which is unfortunate and most likely the reason for this phenomenon to exist; looking at myself it took me four years to end up through the system where I wanted, here.
Concerning the intake and the amount of applicants I feel giving presentations in high schools around the Oulu region would be very important to attract the interested among the young. I think very few have even the slightest clue what biochemistry is about when choosing where to apply; I didn't. I was in such a program in SE and I can say based on those experiences it helped me understand the outlines of the subject better when explaining it in addition to maybe making it clearer to the high school students. Maybe it would help our students too, since we've heard the comments that it isn't entirely obivious during the first years what biochemistry is all about. We worked in pairs and were provided a set of overhead slides from which to compile the presentation, in addition to being paid a small sum of money for lunch and necessities along with bus/train tickets to the target town. I hope such a program can be implemented.
The subject of the first year course timing has been bled dry already, I don't have much to add. Suffice it to say I personally didn't find the arrangements displeasing. On the big picture on the whole BSc degree structure I am unable to comment having seen only what the first year offers.
Lastly, I have suggestions for the tutoring of first year students. I remember a slide being presented in the first introductory session which outlined the relation of all the courses. It was of course a total blur to me and, dare I say, everyone else. It might be productive to give short popularized descriptions of the courses as it could very well make the stucture clearer, and not a bit less importantly, could spark a fire of true interest in the new students, especially for those who are not quite sure what they've got themselves in to - having something concrete to look forward to. Of course alot of it is described in the study guide but it really doesn't give a hands on picture on the subjects. Maybe we could even have interested students prepare short, legible presentations on some of the courses. It might help integrate the new students to the student community as well from the very beginning - the older students don't necessarily bite. At least not very hard.
All in all, our first year here has been challenging but personally mostly pleasing and I would like to thank all the lecturers and assistants for a job fairly well done!
------------------------------------- Juho Yliuntinen Email: juhopett@mail.student.oulu.fi Tel: +358407524079 ------------------------------------- Many thanks for such lengthy and useful comments.
Just to add my comments:
1) From next year there will be a 1 hour session timetabled in at the start of the 1st year, the 2nd year and the 3rd year where we discuss the classes which will come in the next year and outline better the choices/options available and to try to show how things fit together. This will be run by me next year (as Head of Teaching), but if better options are available we can try those in future years.
2) We have agreed that we will have more visits to schools (from students and hopefully from staff as well) in late Autumn / Early Spring. As of 5 minutes ago Viivi Majava agreed to coordinate this. Those of you who saw Viivi in action on Science Day will know that this is in good hands (but remember she is COORDINATOR, she is not supposed to do everything, so students and staff please help out). Expenses is another issue. The department agrees that we should cover the expenses, but the faculty rules about money use is very strict (and in my opinion very odd in places) and Kalervo will check with the faculty what we are allowed to cover.
3) I hope that we will have an optional "teaching for biochemists" course runnning from next year to provide pedagogical training for 3rd year students and have them demonstrating in small groups to the 1st years. This helps with many different problems, but there is a lot of work still to do to see if it is possible in practice and then to plan and implement it. The Teaching Development Unit of the University has already agreed in principal to do the pedagogical part.