In March TOKYO and Dean Helena Hyvönen organized What’s going on arts? discussion event, where we talked about the current issues of our school. The event was a great success (every sandwich was eaten), although of course not everyone had time to participate. But there’s no need to worry! Even if you weren’t there or there’s something you didn’t write down, you can now read anything you want to know from these awesome (re-written) notes about the things discussed in the event. There was a lot of information so the text is divided in three parts: degree reform, new campus and indoor air problems. We’ll publish these in three different posts.

With love, your chairperson Lurppa Haggren

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HERE YOU GO, FIRST ABOUT THE DEGREE REFORM:

(You can download the slides showed in the discussion event here.)

The main points for those, who don’t like reading long texts:

– The degree reform work started in 2011 and soon it is finished. Old programs will be shut down on July 31st 2014, and the new programs begin August 1st 2014
– During the transition periods, current students can choose to continue their studies in the old program or to transfer to the new one.
– There are probably only few old courses offered next autumn, most old courses are replaced with the new ones
– In the future the bachelor program includes minor studies, and there are also minors you can include to your master studies. We have many options for minors in ARTS, and you can also take a minor from other schools in Aalto, other universities in Finland or include those to your exchange studies.
– During this spring all ARTS students are invited to personal study plan meeting (for one person or a group). In the meetings all these things will be explained

MORE INFORMATION HERE:

Because our studies needed updating, the degree reform work started in 2011. Now it’s almost done. The old programs will be shut down July 31st 2014 (after that date no new students will be taken to the old programs) and the new programs begin in August 31st (after that date students can start studies in the new programs).

After the reform you can either study to become a Bachelor of Science (the Department of Architecture) or a Bachelor of Arts (other departments). The current schooling programs for Bachelor’s degree in Arts will be majors of a one program in the future. Practically this doesn’t affect students much, the different majors have their own entrance exams etc. The number of the master programs doesn’t change that much, there are several of those in the future, too.

Transferring to the new programs

The students who start their studies in the autumn 2014 will all study in the new programs. For the current students transferring to the new programs is voluntary during the transition period. For the bachelor students the transition period ends on the October 31st 2016 and for the master students it ends on the October 31st 2015. After the transition period all the students are transferred to the new programs.

The transferring to a new program is done after you apply for it by yourself. You can get more information about this from the personal study plan meeting and from your tutor teacher.

If you want to graduate from an old bachelor program, your bachelor thesis must be left latest on August 31st 2016, your other studies need to be registered and you need to request for the diploma latest on September 30th 2016. Master thesis must be left on August 31st 2015, other studies need to be registered and you need to request for the diploma latest on September 30th 2015. You can download the timetable from this article.

The list of the old and the replacing programs can be found (only in Finnsih) here. The list of the new Master’s Degree Programmes is here. If you want to know more about the new programs, you can check the study guide for 2014-2015 here. Bachelor’s Degree programs are only in Finnish, so if you want to check those, you need to change the language to Finnish.

We also discussed about the ending dates of the transition periods. The Vice Dean Ossi Naukkarinen told us that those days were chosen because of practical reasons: the beginning and the end of autumn are always very busy, so in the middle of autumn the staff will have more time and flexibility to do all the paperwork and briefing for the students.

Course substitutions

Even if you continue in the old program, there’s no guarantee that you can take the old courses you’d like to – many of the old courses will not be offered anymore. In this situation the student studying in the old program will take the new course, which is listed as a substituting one. To the transcription of records study credits will still be marked with the name of the old course. All the course substitutions are not decided yet, but when the decisions are done perhaps we’ll get some kind of a list of these, to the school’s webpage for example…

Minor studies

The new Bachelor’s Degree programs include minor studies, size of 15-25 study credits. Also the students who are studying in the old programs can take a minor, if they want to. Some of the minors are offered as a part of the master studies. More information about minors you can find from Into. During April more information about the minor studies organized by Aalto ARTS are published also in the minor study guide here. The minors are listed by the department that organizes them, but a student from any department can choose those. In addition to the minors organized by ARTS, you can also take a minor from another Aalto school, another university in Finland (JOO-studies) or as a part of you exchange studies.

Personal study planning

The students have commented that there have been a lot of problems with guidance on personal study planning: some think there has been too little of it, some say they haven’t got any guidance at all. The guidance is now even more important as students need to think about the things related to the degree reform and substituting courses. The staff members who are responsible for helping the students to plan their studies have, during this spring, attended personal study plan trainings related to degree reform.

During March or April all students will receive (some have already received) a letter about the degree reform and the personal study plan process of this spring. The schooling programs will invite their students to personal study plan meetings during April or May. Depending on the schooling program, the meetings will be for one student or a group, but of course the ones attending a group meeting can ask for a personal meeting after it. After you’ve discussed with the staff member who is helping with your study plans, you can decide whether you want to transfer to the new program or continue in the old one.

In the future, starting from next autumn, every student will get guidance on study planning at least once a year. Of course you can also ask for guidance more often, if you want. To make the study planning easier the students will also get a form they will fill when planning the studies. We’ve heard that some current students have also received some kind of form, but this new one has a new feature: you’ll be aware of what to do with it and to whom you should bring it back to. We’ve heard that there has been problems with these things before.

SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THAT CAME UP IN THE EVENT

Q: I’ve started my studies in this certain schooling program and there’s no program with that name within the new schooling programs. Is it possible to graduate from this program after the transition period?

A: Unfortunately not. After the transition period all students will be transferred to the new programs and the graduating students will get their papers from those new ones.

Q: The transition period is very short, why don’t we have more time to graduate from the old programs?

A: During the transition period school must make studying in the new program and the old program possible, which means offering double courses in some schooling programs. Our school just doesn’t have the resources to do this for a long time.

Q: Are there any rules of what minors I can or can’t take?

A: Basically the only rule is that the organizer of the minor has to accept the student. There are some limits of how many students can take a certain minor which means that perhaps the department cannot accept everyone who’d like to take that minor. More information can be found in the minor study guide and from here.

Q: Is it possible to apply transferring to the new program in any time of the year or do I have to do it at a certain time?

A: There are no common rules about that because it depends on the courses you can take and how far are you on your studies. You’ll get more information about this from your schooling program or your tutor teacher.

Q: How can you make sure that the courses of my minor studies are not at the same time as the courses of my major studies? Is there a system to avoid that?

A: Unfortunately not yet. This is quite a challenge for our school, there are more minors in ARTS than in any other school so we will also have more difficulties with organizing the timetables. We don’t yet have a system to solve this problem.