Hello there!
Today I will write about all paper work you need to prepare before getting on board :). This is one of the most tiresome part but when you have prepared everything smoothly, things will be paid off.
I. AFTER BEING NOMINATED BY THE COORDINATOR.
You need to still apply to the partner university with all of the forms and requirements are sent through the coordinator. For Sophia University, you need to submit:
- Application form
This paper required you to fill in your basic information and the proposed courses you will take in the university (which you can change later). You need to have 4,5 x 4,5 passport photo (which is not the size in Finland) so you just need to tell studio taking the photo a bit further so later on you can cut the edge yourself :D. I took the passport photo in verkkokauppa which costed only 1 Euro for 6 pictures.
- 2 recommendation letter from professors
You need to ask your 2 different teachers to write you some words. If you plan to have some good impression for your scholarship then this is one of the most important paper, otherwise, just some words from your professors.
- Certificate of health
This one is required for the Certificate of Eligibility (one kind of paper as an approval for you to make visa). The paper will ask you to have lungs Xray and other basics stuff. What you have to do is to book time in YTHS (Finnish National Healthcare) to have the doctor filled and signed in the paper proving that you are totally fine :D. It was quite tricky for us to have the Xray because in Finland, when you do not have any health problem, Xray is allowed to use (radioactive FYI) but the Japanese side really ask for that so you need to really persuade the Finnish healthcare to do that for you or you have to go to private one (costs more than 70euros) to have to paper filled in. To have this paper done, I had to go to see doctor 3 times: to fill basic information, to do Xray, and to receive Xray result.
- Housing application
I am pretty sure every schools have their dorm ready for exchange student so if you want to skip the tiring finding housing part, then fill in this paper. Also another plus side of dorm is that you will live with other students and enjoy exchange life with clubs and organizations in the dorm.
However, before deciding to stay in dorm or not to stay, we have done some research and found out that Sophia dorm (soshigaya) is the cheapest one (about 400 euros per month not including electricity and water) among all of the options but in order to go to school, we have to travel in 1 hour and 20 minutes walk in the busiest line of Tokyo and other dorm prices are very high so we decided not to take this option, we did not fill in the housing application.
- Fill in COE form
Like what I mentioned. COE form is very important for your visa so the more careful we put in the information, the faster it will be issued. IF there is any problem with the information, the university will notify you to check and correct it, which will take more time for it to be issued. I have filled my dad's income in VND instead of Yen so the school had me correct it :D
After filling in all of the information, you will bring the documents to our coordinator to have it sent. Do it before the deadline or your package will be rejected XD!
II. LEARNING AGREEMENT
Then you need to take a look at the courses available in the university again (For sophia University, it is available in syllabus inquiry) and fill in proposed learning agreement to submit and approved by Aalto University.
Universities in Japan have different credits system compared to European one. So 1 credit in Japan equals to 2 ECTS in Europe.
In Sophia University, you are required to have 12 Japanese credits (=24 ECTS per semester), and you are not allowed to take other language courses than Japanese.
III. ARRIVAL PACKAGE
After your CoE is approve, the Japanese university will send you some sort of package that includes of information for the orientation, acceptance letter the visa instruction and your CoE as well as a paper for the working permit.
If you are planning to work in Japan, you need to fill out the working permit and submit it in the airport.
IV. VISA APPLICATION
Then you need to prepare to submit your application to the Japanese Embassy located in Unioninkatu, Helsinki. The application includes of
1. Passport
2. Certificate of Eligibility (COE)
3. Acceptance Letter from University
4. 2 photos (45mm x 45 mm)
The visa is issued to you within 1 week with the price of 22 euros (cash). When you receive your visa attached to the passport. You are pretty much ready to go!!!!
Wednesday, 31 August 2016
Monday, 29 August 2016
Hello there! My first blog starting my lifetime trip is here
Hello
This is my first post in this blog. As you can read from my description, I am a student of Aalto University School of Business. I am writing this in Tieto :D while I should prepare for my final thesis presentation coming up next Thursday *Panic* and I also should clean my flat also to terminate it :S *Panic 2* and I should pack my luggage to fly next 2 weeks *Panic 3*
However, I am still here writing this first post because why not :D and as a girl who lives very emotionally, when I catch the emotion and flow, it is the best to show it out right away or I will forget it.
The emotion here is the excitement of starting a lifetime trip. As a master student finalizing the stressful thesis, a trip to Japan is like a gap year holiday, preparing before jumping into nest 40 years working non-stop. Also, my job seeking journey so far has been horrible terrible, which is mostly because I am bashful and not confident enough during interviews, even though academically, I am sure I am not that bad :D. So an exchange time like this, I believe, can help me enhance my confidence and communication.
My thesis is written for an organization in Finland. I started writing in June and finished it last week. Two months of concentration has passed quite smoothly, although I was distracted by Pokemon Go and some Korean TV shows XD. Next week, I will present the thesis and hopefully, the supervisor will not find any terrible mistakes in my thesis! After that, it is time to go! Yeahh
I applied to Sophia University in Spring 2016 and got the acceptance from the coordinator in January. Before applying, I did not research much about the university as I was planning to somewhere else. As the matter of fact, Sophia was not my choice. The reason why I could not get to where I wanted was because I did not apply it early in my first year in Aalto, hence, the index in the second year is really not my side. Let's take an example.
I have GPA = 4,7 (that is the truth :) I am nerdy) but I have studied only 36 ECTS when I applied in the 3rd semester. As the result, my index was only 4,7 *36/3 = 56,4
Assume that A is in his first semester here with GPA only 3,5, studied 24 ECTS, his index is going to be 3,5*24/1 = 84 taddaa he ranks much higher than me even though her study is not as good, so he can get to the exchange place where she wants and I will go to less desired place. The competition is tough for second year student or students who studied slowly for GPA (like me) so please take a closer analysis and apply for exchange study early in the first year!
However, although I was disappointed because I cannot get to where I want, Tokyo is still very good, cannot complain. Thanks a lot to the coordinator, Minna, who tried to fit everybody to their desired places.
I did not want Tokyo that much in my first preferences because everybody knows that it is expensive, the most expensive city in the world. I really hesitated, my to-go or not-to-go decision drove me crazy for sometimes. Whenever I checked the housing price in Japan, I dont want to go. The cheapest house the university offers is around 40 000 yen (excluding utility and all kind of irrational cost like key cost :o and cleaning cost :o and greeting cost :ooo) which is around 400 euros per month. Even more outrageous than that, some of the dorms cost around 900 -1000 euros per month if we choose the option to eat inside the dorm for dinner and breakfast. 1000 euros is enough for me to live 2 months in Finland like a rich person seriously. At the same time, the number of paper I need to submit for the CoE procedure is very overloaded. I needed to submit a health cerificate with lungs X-ray (it is obligatory for everybody!), 3 paper forms, 2 recommendation letters and housing applications. These are even less than Keio University where you have to submit your bank statement and your parents income proof :D and THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING *Panic*
To gain the motivation to go to Japan, I went online and search google with keywords
"Sushi"
and "Sakura", these pictures in the Google search made me feel that Japan is the heaven on earth, especially, regarding cuisine haha XD. Sugoi de su ne ! (awesome, right?). So when you are tired of procedure to go to Japan and afraid of expense in Japan, you can do the same, lets see how it help you.
Bonus
here is the reasons to live in Tokyo:
https://tokyocheapo.com/lifestyle/top-reasons-to-live-in-tokyo/
http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/visit/best-japan/worlds-greatest-city-50-reasons-why-tokyo-no-1-903662/
So do not hesitate when you have the opportunity to go to exchange, especially to Japan. I think that the expense is going to be more than you expect but the life time experience is going to worth it.
Goodluck! ^^
This is my first post in this blog. As you can read from my description, I am a student of Aalto University School of Business. I am writing this in Tieto :D while I should prepare for my final thesis presentation coming up next Thursday *Panic* and I also should clean my flat also to terminate it :S *Panic 2* and I should pack my luggage to fly next 2 weeks *Panic 3*
However, I am still here writing this first post because why not :D and as a girl who lives very emotionally, when I catch the emotion and flow, it is the best to show it out right away or I will forget it.
The emotion here is the excitement of starting a lifetime trip. As a master student finalizing the stressful thesis, a trip to Japan is like a gap year holiday, preparing before jumping into nest 40 years working non-stop. Also, my job seeking journey so far has been horrible terrible, which is mostly because I am bashful and not confident enough during interviews, even though academically, I am sure I am not that bad :D. So an exchange time like this, I believe, can help me enhance my confidence and communication.
My thesis is written for an organization in Finland. I started writing in June and finished it last week. Two months of concentration has passed quite smoothly, although I was distracted by Pokemon Go and some Korean TV shows XD. Next week, I will present the thesis and hopefully, the supervisor will not find any terrible mistakes in my thesis! After that, it is time to go! Yeahh
I applied to Sophia University in Spring 2016 and got the acceptance from the coordinator in January. Before applying, I did not research much about the university as I was planning to somewhere else. As the matter of fact, Sophia was not my choice. The reason why I could not get to where I wanted was because I did not apply it early in my first year in Aalto, hence, the index in the second year is really not my side. Let's take an example.
I have GPA = 4,7 (that is the truth :) I am nerdy) but I have studied only 36 ECTS when I applied in the 3rd semester. As the result, my index was only 4,7 *36/3 = 56,4
Assume that A is in his first semester here with GPA only 3,5, studied 24 ECTS, his index is going to be 3,5*24/1 = 84 taddaa he ranks much higher than me even though her study is not as good, so he can get to the exchange place where she wants and I will go to less desired place. The competition is tough for second year student or students who studied slowly for GPA (like me) so please take a closer analysis and apply for exchange study early in the first year!
However, although I was disappointed because I cannot get to where I want, Tokyo is still very good, cannot complain. Thanks a lot to the coordinator, Minna, who tried to fit everybody to their desired places.
I did not want Tokyo that much in my first preferences because everybody knows that it is expensive, the most expensive city in the world. I really hesitated, my to-go or not-to-go decision drove me crazy for sometimes. Whenever I checked the housing price in Japan, I dont want to go. The cheapest house the university offers is around 40 000 yen (excluding utility and all kind of irrational cost like key cost :o and cleaning cost :o and greeting cost :ooo) which is around 400 euros per month. Even more outrageous than that, some of the dorms cost around 900 -1000 euros per month if we choose the option to eat inside the dorm for dinner and breakfast. 1000 euros is enough for me to live 2 months in Finland like a rich person seriously. At the same time, the number of paper I need to submit for the CoE procedure is very overloaded. I needed to submit a health cerificate with lungs X-ray (it is obligatory for everybody!), 3 paper forms, 2 recommendation letters and housing applications. These are even less than Keio University where you have to submit your bank statement and your parents income proof :D and THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING *Panic*
To gain the motivation to go to Japan, I went online and search google with keywords
"Sushi"
"Okinawa"
"Wagashi"
and "Sakura", these pictures in the Google search made me feel that Japan is the heaven on earth, especially, regarding cuisine haha XD. Sugoi de su ne ! (awesome, right?). So when you are tired of procedure to go to Japan and afraid of expense in Japan, you can do the same, lets see how it help you.
Bonus
here is the reasons to live in Tokyo:
https://tokyocheapo.com/lifestyle/top-reasons-to-live-in-tokyo/
http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/visit/best-japan/worlds-greatest-city-50-reasons-why-tokyo-no-1-903662/
So do not hesitate when you have the opportunity to go to exchange, especially to Japan. I think that the expense is going to be more than you expect but the life time experience is going to worth it.
Goodluck! ^^
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