Type of housing: Apartment/House

Arranged by: Host university

If returning, I would choose: Apartment/House

Why? Kortepohja is the best place in terms of interaction with local and international students.

Personal comments:
Accomodation is mainly provided by 2 different organizations: 1) Student Union: they run a huge apartment block, called Kortepohja. Around 1900 students call it home. Great location, because within walking distance to the skiing resort. 10 minutes by bike to the main campus 2) KOAS: some kind of public organization that provides students with decent housing. It's a bit cheaper than Kortepohja but often further away from main campus.

Describe host city: Students equally interact with the local and student community

Nightlife: Takes place mostly within the university/student environment

Activities, Travel: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
PLACES Tuesday nights:Domino/Blaze Club(pub)- Meeting point of any exchange student during the whole year and of some local addicts. Place is nice and dark, music is good thanks to DJ. Week end: Elohuvi (night club)- Best place to go, this is one of the biggest discos in Finland. Special spot on the upper floor (finnish bands) Day time: Memphis/Coffee House- Same place for two different concepts, you can find either huge selection of different coffees and good food or amazing coktails. The atmopshere is nice thanks to the music and youth public. EVENTS during winter, visits organized by the Student Union (companies, cities, abroad) several concert on live when the summer comes 1st may: Vappu - a chance to see finnish way of partying 21st june: Juhannus- Celebration of mid summer in the whole country and do not miss sauna experience all over the year (especially in winter with ice or snow bath)

Course recommendations:
the quality of courses differ a lot, even within the same faculty. I strongly recommend to attend classes given by visiting professors at the school of business and economics. In general the courses are quite small and challenging. Jyväskylän Yliopisto is the countries' leading alma mater in the fields of sports and education. Here are some courses I recommend from different faculties. management of winter sports, theoretical and methodological aspects of the social sciences of sports, environmental management,INTOPIA (business simulation), Intercultural Communication and of course all FINNISH courses for foreigners.

Personal comments:
The Finnish language courses should be either in the early morning or late afternoon to avoid overlapping with other courses. Courses that are announced in the course directory should actually take place!

Language of instruction: English

Main source of funding:
Family

Other sources of funding:
Personal savings
An ERASMUS grant

Work opportunities:
I didn't explore any work options

Personal spending habits:
Food is definately more expensive than in Portugal - especially meat and fish. In telephone I spent less here because I use it less than at home. Nightlife is more expensive but I also had more nightlife here than i have at home. I travelled a lot visiting Finland's neighboring countries. Overall, life is more expensive but not as much as i expected.

Food, Travel, Nightlife, Overall: was more expensive than at home.

Housing: was the same price as at home.

Telephone: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
Sorry, can't remember anything significant.

In my opinion:
Everybody loved it, you will too!