Not surprised. I think it’s baffling that a master’s thesis for a Finnish education degree, which will be used for employement in (probably) Finland, should be written in English. This puts people whose English isn’t that good at a disadvantage and it just feels pointless and makes the whole process more tedious.
I am a foreigner, speak Finnish reasonably well and study at a UAS here, in a field that will 100% need top notch Finnish skills. Turns out my UAS doesn’t have a single Finnish course for my level, they are all aimed at levels way below mine. Yet I am expected to fill a certain amount of credits with Finnish courses.
The helpful answer to what should I do? Take some of my courses in the Finnish language, not in English like offered for my program. That will however only gain me the credit for the course, **not** the credits I am supposed to gain via Finnish language studies.
Why does the UAS not offer a writing or communication course for higher levels? Too few foreigners who have sufficiently high proficiency.
Well, the way I see it, if the UAS offers no courses for me to improve my writing skills and no one who will check and correct my writing, why should I go through the trouble of writing my thesis in Finnish? My job will not require academic writing. Writing a thesis in English is much easier and less time consuming for me.
Many programs in English are designed to make money for the school, not to train people for the Finnish job market (otherwise as stated by another poster, they’d provide appropriate training)
Many Finnish speakers join those programs either due to availability, or to be exposed to international classroom. This is especially true at master level because foreign bachelor will apply.
On the other hand, PhD work need to be peer reviewed and published, this cannot really happen in Finnish, so you might as well prepare your academic English at Master level.
3 comments
Not surprised. I think it’s baffling that a master’s thesis for a Finnish education degree, which will be used for employement in (probably) Finland, should be written in English. This puts people whose English isn’t that good at a disadvantage and it just feels pointless and makes the whole process more tedious.
I am a foreigner, speak Finnish reasonably well and study at a UAS here, in a field that will 100% need top notch Finnish skills. Turns out my UAS doesn’t have a single Finnish course for my level, they are all aimed at levels way below mine. Yet I am expected to fill a certain amount of credits with Finnish courses.
The helpful answer to what should I do? Take some of my courses in the Finnish language, not in English like offered for my program. That will however only gain me the credit for the course, **not** the credits I am supposed to gain via Finnish language studies.
Why does the UAS not offer a writing or communication course for higher levels? Too few foreigners who have sufficiently high proficiency.
Well, the way I see it, if the UAS offers no courses for me to improve my writing skills and no one who will check and correct my writing, why should I go through the trouble of writing my thesis in Finnish? My job will not require academic writing. Writing a thesis in English is much easier and less time consuming for me.
Many programs in English are designed to make money for the school, not to train people for the Finnish job market (otherwise as stated by another poster, they’d provide appropriate training)
Many Finnish speakers join those programs either due to availability, or to be exposed to international classroom. This is especially true at master level because foreign bachelor will apply.
On the other hand, PhD work need to be peer reviewed and published, this cannot really happen in Finnish, so you might as well prepare your academic English at Master level.