Before arrival to Hanken

Having been selected by your university

The file of a nominated exchange student shall contain a number of documents. Exactly which documents you and your university are asked to provide are listed below as are the deadlines when requested documents and forms have to have reached Hanken. We kindly ask you to send these documents and forms as soon as possible after you have been nominated by your home university, early submitted documents and forms are appreciated.

It is important that you follow the deadlines for delivery of forms and documents so that we get your file complete and can prepare for your stay at Hanken.

The Centre for Research and International Affairs
The Centre is administrating the student exchange programme under the ERASMUS and NORDPLUS programmes and the bilateral agreements and offers services to exchange students. After your home institution has nominated you for a semester or year abroad at Hanken, our staff will be glad to assist you. The information provided on the web will hopefully answer many of your questions related to planning for your stay in Finland. Please do not hesitate to contact us. Your main point of contact will be the Centre for Research and International Affairs in Helsinki, which is your "International Office". Also students who are nominated for studying at our Vaasa Campus are requested to contact the International Office in Helsinki with questions concerning their application procedure and admittance and to send the application documents to our Centre.

Contact addresses:

Application process

NB! The application is done online! Students register their data and upload/complete forms in the new online application system. No paper documents are needed to be sent.

After receipt of a nomination from a partner university Hanken will send a Confirmation of receipt of the nomination to the partner university and the student. The Confirmation letter is also a reminder of the application documents to be submitted and other steps the student must take to prepare for the exchange, all of them described on the pages below. Start the preparation by reading the information in the following pages.

The Centre for Research and International Affairs issues an Admittance Letter after having received the requested application documents and we have checked that everything is in order. The Admittance Letter is needed by students from non EU/EEA-member countries to apply for a visa and residence permit.

• Application:
  
  1. Fill in the online registration form
  2. Register a profile and add a photo (max 500x500 pixels)
  3. Upload the following documents to your profile:
  - CV (Resume)
  - Brief Motivation letter
  - Transcript(s) of Records, (with your university's stamp), i.e. the list of courses and grades you have completed at
  home
  - A photo (max 500x500 pixels)
  - Certificate of English proficiency:
  
  English language test scores are mandatory. The test score has to be communicated by the partner university's International Office in the nomination information 15 April/15 October. If not yet available by nomination deadline, the student must take a test and obatin the minimum score by the application deadline 1 May/1 November. An acceptable test minimum score must be presented before any admission can be given. We accept also a copy of an original test score document certified by the partner International Office. Please provide your International office with a document.
  
  The accepted language tests and minimum scores are:
  TOEFL: 560 (PBT, paper based test), 83 (iBT, internet based test)
  IELTS: 6.0
  Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency of English CPE: Grade C
  Common European Framework of Reference for Languages CEF* B2.2
  * Hanken reserves the right to accept only CEF certificates issued by persons authorized to issue certificates in the language in question.

Deadlines for receipt of the Application documents at Hanken:

Students nominated in the spring 2011 for the Autumn semester 2011 (Aug/Sept -Dec) or Spring semester 2012 (Jan - May/June) or Full year 2011-2012 are all requested to send the application documents by the same deadline:

1 May 2011

Note that you are asked to submit your application documents by 1 May 2011even if you are applying for the spring semester 2012. The application file has to be complete before the Admittance letter can be issued (i.e. English test score report as well).

Students applying and selected and nominated in the autumn 2011 for the Spring semester 2012 are requested to send the application documents by

1 November 2011

Please observe the deadlines! We look forward to receiving your application documents.

Application for accommodation

Helsinki Campus
Students selected to the Helsinki Campus shall apply online directly from the Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region, HOAS, to reserve their accommodation. The information needed is available on the HOAS webpage www.hoas.fi.

Vaasa Campus
Students selected to the Vaasa Campus shall contact the Foundation for Student Housing VOAS directly to reserve their accommodation at www.voas.fi . No applications for accommodation are to be sent to Hanken.

For more information on accommodation, see further below under "Accommodation".

Documents requested for course selection and arrival

Students shall complete the Learning Agreement (their course plan) and the Arrival data online.

Choosing and registering courses 2011-2012

NEW 2011: In addition to the online application for 2011-2012, Hanken also introduces course registration from abroad. For this purpose you will get the enrolment and your Hanken network user account and ID activated previous to your arrival at our campus in Helsinki or Vaasa.

More information on this will follow. At this stage it is enough for you to know that these new procedures will facilitate your course admittance and your start up at Hanken.

NB! The course programme for the following academic year is published in early summer each year. We will communicate the expected publication date.

Note that course programme is subject to change every year. Please ensure that you have chosen the correct academic year in the drop list above the courses when you are about to complete your course choices in the online system. (Current academic year is default until 31 July).

Tip: Until the publishing date of the next academic year you can make course plans by looking at the current academic year. The course offer is relatively stable. Please, also read the section "Studying at Hanken" on the webpages for Incoming exchange students when you are planning for next year. You will find advice on how to get more detailed course information useful for your planning by checking syllabuses for courses in the current academic year.

Timetables
The course timetables that are important for your course planning will be published on the web. The timetables for courses offered in the autumn semester 2010 will be published in early summer2011 and timetables for courses offered in the spring semester 2012 will be published by early November 2011. The timetable for each course is available on the home page of the course. Select "Courses and study plans" in the right tool bar > Select subject > Select a course > Click Schedule. The program shows the time, the name and code of the course, the name of the teacher, the auditorium and what type of class it is (föreläsning = lecture, övning = excercise).

Students will get assistance with final course choices and registrations during the Orientation course in Helsinki and Vaasa. During the Orientation course there will be time for, for example, councelling on how timetable clashes could be handled.

We stronly advice you to compare your course plan to the time tables before you complete the "Learning Agreement" in Mobility Online!

Exchange Studies - Courses offered in English
The course offered in Helsinki and Vaasa are compiled in as separate lists on the page Courses and study plans .Exchange students should scroll down to the bottom of the page to Exchange Studies - Courses offered in English (ES-CE) where all the courses open to exchange students are listed. This is to avoid that you come across some course not offered to exchange students and would make preliminary plans for a course that you will not be allowed to take at Hanken. For example, if you search for courses under a subject link (e.g Finance) you will find all the Finance courses offered in English including courses that are aimed exclusively for English MSc degree programme students.

Please check the course description (the course home page) to be sure about the language of instruction (Swedish or English).

Exchange students from the Nordic countries who are able to understand teaching in Swedish and who can read literature in Swedish may choose courses taught in Swedish as well. Tip: By browsing the pages in Swedish you will see which courses are taught in Swedish as the titles are in Swedish. Look under the respective subject and note the separate columns for courses in Helsinki and Vaasa.

Work load
Exchange students are expected to complete 30 ECTS per semester, i.e. 4-5 courses. Most courses are worth 6 or 8 credits and a few worth 4 or 3 credits. One credit at Hanken is comparable to one ECTS credit. The expected workload per semester is 30 ECTS. Hanken accepts a workload of approximately 30 ECTS, due to the fact that the needed or wanted courses may not sum up to exactly 30 ECTS. Always check what your home university accepts.

Course level
The level "intermediate" means a course at undergraduate (BSc) level. (You can ignore the notion of " basic/intermediate", "basic" has relevance only to our regular degree students). The level "advanced" means a course at graduate (MSc) level. However, there are advanced courses of two kind; a) courses that are mandatory for the respective major, which require profound (advanced) previous knowledge of the subject in question, or b) courses that are electives at graduate level (MSc level) an therefore labeled "advanced". Courses of this type are aimed to broaden the student's field of knowledge.

Exchange students may mix levels and take both BSc and MSc level courses, provided they meet the prerequisites for a specific course. If you are a BSc level student at home, be aware of possible restrictions to take MSc level courses of category (a) at Hanken. The first advice is that you look for courses at your respective level. On the other hand, in case you are a MSc level student and find a BSc level course that your university will accept, this will be no problem to Hanken. Sometimes choosing a BSc upper level course may solve a problem of finding a good course mix and could be a substitute for a MSc level course of category (b).

Course choice online
The course choise (Learning Agreement) must be completed online. The listed courses could be preliminary, optional or the final preferences. As the time tables for the courses are published in early June/November course clashes can be checked for before completing the Learning Agreement online. Full year students may communicate their spring semester course plans in August and hand in a revised or new Learning Agreement later in December.

You can check your upoaded Learning Agreement and ask us to print iand sign it upon arrival at Hanken. Erasmus students whose home university requests their own letter head version of the ECTS Learning Agreement to be signed by Hanken can, of course, bring the home university form for Hanken to sign.

When choosing courses, note the following. Prerequisites for a course such as previous knowledge or possible limited number of places is mentioned on the course home page. Admittance to some courses may be checked more in detail. The chance of being accepted to preferred courses will be better, or even depending upon, an up-to-date Transcript of Records of courses you have taken at your home university. The Internatioanl co-ordinator assisting you and the professors may request latest information in support of your course application.

We recommend that you have some optional course choices (a plan B) in case you would not be admitted to your most preferred courses. There is always a possibility to change courses upon arrival at Hanken, this is not a problem for Hanken. You shall, however, always check what will be accepted by your home university.

Important! Completing the online Learning Agreement is not a registration of your courses in Hanken's database. You will have to sign up yourself for courses in the WebOodi database on the Internet .

WebOodi will open for registrations on 1 August / in November to all students, exchange students included. You will be able to sign up for courses in WebOodi from abroad before arrival.

NB! User agreement, User ID and password requested to sign up for courses will be air mailed to your university's International office and outgoing coordinator in early June / November for you to collect. Information on this is given over the Online application system.

Course Councelling
As a coming exchange student at Hanken you are welcome to contact the International Co-ordinator (margareta.granholm(at)hanken.fi) in case you have questions regarding courses and academic matters before your arrival.

Changes of course plans and registrations

In Helsinki:
You may (may have to) make adjustments to your course plans and registrations. During the Orientation course in Helsinki the International Co-ordinator will function as your counceller and if needed direct you to the teacher/professor in specific matters.

In Vaasa:
You may (may have to) make adjustments to your course plans and registrations. The International coordinator (incoming students), Margareta Granholm, in Helsinki will reply to your general questions related to academic matters and course choices before your arrival. After your arrival in Vaasa and during the Orientation course you will be assisted in specific course matters and practicalities by your counceller Ms Kristina Wallin and teachers/professors at the Vaasa Campus.

Signing of Learning Agreement
The Learning Agreement will be signed by Hanken when you have been able to set a workable course plan, usually after your arrival at Hanken. Please note this in case your home university would require a signed Learning Agreement previous to your arrival at Hanken. Plans will have to be kept subject to change. Changes to a Learning Agreement can be done if needed.

All Learning Agreements are signed by the ECTS coordinator(s) at the Helsinki Campus, also the agreements of students going to the Vaasa campus.

Deadline for completing Course selection (the Learning Agreement) online:

by 1 August 2011 (Students starting in September)
by 1 December 2011 (Students coming in January 2012 for the spring semester only)

Tip: Replace the home Transcript that you uploaded online for the application by an updated one, even if only a print screen version (not official transcript), but perhaps stamped by your home university office. Alternatively you may bring an up-to-date Transcript with you to Hanken.


Arrival data online

Fill in your Arrival date and time online by

1 August 2011 at the latest (autumn semester students)
1 December 2011 (spring semester students)

The Hanken tutors in Helsinki and Vaasa will then have time to arrange the pickup service for your arrival.

Thank you for submitting these documents by the deadlines!

Visa and Residence Permit

If you are not a citizen of the Nordic countries and intend to stay for longer than three months in Finland, you will need a residence permit.

For more information, please visit the website of the Directorate of Immigration at www.uvi.fi >English>Students and the website of the Ministry of foreign affairs of Finland at http://formin.finland.fi/english / > Services >Foreign nationals arriving in Finland.

Application before entering Finland:
International students who have been offered admission to Hanken will be issued an Admittance letter as certificate of the acceptance that is needed for the application of a residence permit. Citizens from other than the Nordic, EU and EEA countries(and Switzerland) and for whom a residence permit is required should obtain a student residence permit before entering the country by submitting an application form accompanied by the admittance letter as well as documents verifying financial resources to the nearest Embassy or Consulate of Finland. The processing time of the application for a residence permit varies, but could take months. Therefore we strongly recommend that the admitted student submit an application for a residence permit immediately upon receipt of the Admittance letter (May or November respectively).

A residence permit will not be issued unless the candidate can prove that he/she has sufficient funds to support him- or herself during the entire period of studies in Finland, either through a grant or through other funds. The applicant must have a minimum of EUR 500 per month at his or her disposal. In some cases the applicant can show that that the funds are available for transfer from the home country to Finland by means of reliable banking connection.

Application (registering) after entering Finland:
Citizens of an EU or EEA country (plus Switzerland) do not need a visa to enter Finland but they must register their right to reside in Finland if their stay lasts longer than three months. A student residence permit should be applied for after arrival in Finland.

In Helsinki you apply for the residence permit at the police station at Malmi, Viljatie 2, 00700 Helsinki.
In Vaasa you apply for the residence permit at the police station at Rauhankatu 22.

The documents you need to bring with you are:
- your passport
- the Letter of Enrolment issued upon arrival showing that your study right as a student at Hanken in the exchange programme has been activated
- a copy of a document showing that you have sufficient funds to cover your expenses during your entire stay in Finland (documents/statements for any scholarship, study grant, and private funding)
- 1 passport-size photo and
- EUR 40.00 (approx).

You will receive a residence card approximately one month after you have filed your application with the police, which serves as evidence that your official permission to stay in Finland is in order.

No registration required:
Citizens of the other Nordic countries do not need to register for a residence permit upon arrival but should be prepared to verify their identity and citizenship if requested by the passport controller. Nordic students shall bring their passport with them to Finland as a passport is needed to visit Russia or the Baltic States.

Insurance and Health Services

All students arriving in Finland must have sufficient health coverage. Exchange students must arrange their insurance in their home country before they leave for Finland. Nationals of non-EU/EEA countries must have a helath insurance in order to be eligible for a residence permit. Nationals of the EU member states are partly covered by the Finnish social security system, but must make sure they are fully covered for illness and accidents before leaving their home country. For more information, it is most important you share the information given by the Centre for Mobility, CIMO, at http://finland.cimo.fi/ and the portal Discover Finland > Studying > Practicalities.

Health care
You should contact your local health authority and insurance agency at home to make sure that you are fully covered in case of illness or accident during your travels to and from Finland and your entire stay here. In case of illness, if you come from an EU or EEA country you are covered by your national health care insurance during your stay in Finland. You should get the European health care card from your local health care authority and bring it with you. As a visiting student in Finland, you are entitled to use the Student Health Service (YTHS) when you join the Hanken Student union and receive the Student ID-card. The Student union fee includes the health care fee. Consultation, general treatment and vaccinations are free at the Student Health Service, for specialists' appointment and dental treatment there is inexpensive treatment. However, the Student health Service doesn't offer emergency and hospital services. The web address of the Student Health Centre is www.yths.fi

If you choose to use public health services, they, too, are inexpensive. If you prefer to use private health service there is a higher fee.

Hanken is not able to take any responsibility for exchange students in case of illness or accident. Please, ensure that you, and your belongings, are sufficiently insured during your entire stay in Finland. Do not forget to contact your insurance company at home and buy your insurance before you take off to Finland.

Financing and Cost of Living

Exchange students have to ensure that they have sufficient funding to cover all expenses during their stay. The exchange programme usually provides you with some grant administered by your own university, the rest you have to get from other sources. There are no Finnish grants or scholarships available for foreign exchange students. Please note that Hanken does not offer any grants or other finacial support system for international students.

What is considered sufficient funds varies with individual spending habits. You certainly wish to enjoy the stay, which probably means that you have to add to your normal monthly expenses. A reasonable sum to cover costs for housing and living (Helsinki) would be EUR 850, the average rent calculated as EUR 390 per month. Students will have to pay a deposit for all types of accommodation upon arrival. This money is refunded when you leave. Take into account also the deposit for accommodation and the first month's rent when you set up your budget. Remember to reserve enough cash for expenses you are going to have during the first weeks!

Cost of living

The monthly costs in Helsinki could be broken down roughly as (approximations):
Rent: EUR 390 most common HOAS rent (approx. EUR 550 for a studio in central Helsinki) NB! as of 2011
Food: EUR 250 (whereof the state subsidized Hanken lunch is 50)
Local transport: EUR 20 (student discount)
Personal/incidental, study material: EUR 200

According to former exchange students who have been doing the "regular" touring exchange students do, i.e. Lapland, St. Petersburg, Estonia, Stockholm, the monthly average budget amount to EUR 1000 or more.

The monthly costs in Vaasa could be broken down roughly as (approximations):
Rent: EUR 200-350 NB! as of 2011
Food: EUR 250 (whereof the state subsidized Hanken lunch is 50)
Personal/incidental, study material, local transportation, : EUR 200

Accommodation

Accommodation IN HELSINKI

Hanken's partner in providing accommodation is the Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS). HOAS provides a pool of furnished rooms for exchange students on behalf of several universities and universities of applied sciences in the Helsinki region. Exchange students at Hanken and the other partners in the consortium are assigned accommodation at locations convenient to them. The principle HOAS will follow when placing the students is to offer housing at convenient distance and location with respect to the university. "First come, first served" also rules.

All information on how to apply for a place and on the various types of housing and locations are found on the HOAS webpage.

An exchange student at Hanken shall him/herself reserve a room from HOAS by the use of the electronic application form available on the HOAS web page www.hoas.fi under EXCHANGE. Click "How to apply for housing" and you will find the link to the application form to be used ONLY by exchange students. Please DO NOT fill in any other form.

The Hanken-HOAS agreement means that HOAS will handle the placement of students. Hanken will inform HOAS about accepted students by a date set by HOAS. From June onwards HOAS will start the placements. You secure an offer for a room by applying, preferable well in advance, before the deadline for Exchange applications given on HOAS' webpage.

We recommend nominated students to apply for HOAS accommodation as soon as possible in April / October respectively when the application is opened at www.hoas.fi and you have been nominated for Hanken. Your application will be filed and pending at HOAS and HOAS will match your application against the list of admitted students that Hanken will send to HOAS.

HOAS International Services (Helsinki) will send you the room offer and request your confirmation of the offer. You confirm the room by paying the deposit in advance from abroad and returning the requested documents by the deadline HOAS will give you in the offer.

Having received your accommodation offer from HOAS, you should be in contact directly with HOAS in any matters concerning the accommodation. Hanken does not handle questions regarding the accommodation.

Keys upon arrival
If you ask for the pickup service in connection to uploading the Arrival data in Mobility-Online you are assisted by Hanken's exchange student tutors and they will pick you up at the airport/harbour/railway station. A tutor will take you to the apartment and will have the key. The arrival dates with tutors' pickup service are on 22-23 August 2011 and 16-17 January 2012, during two days before the mandatory Orientation course.

In case you are not able to arrive during the pickup days you shall contact the International Office in Helsinki to learn how to get the key for your apartment and room.

We accept late arrival (not in time for the Orientation course) only if you have exams to take at home overlapping the Orientation course, or some severe personal hindrance.

Tenancy period
The HOAS student tenancy period is fixed, and runs from 1.9-31.12.2011 (autumn semester), 1.1-31.5.2012 (spring semester) or 1.9.2011-31.5.2012 (full year). The dates of the agreement cannot be changed! Students must pay the rent until the expiring date indicated in the tenancy agreement even if they leave before the end of the semester or academic year. Although the HOAS agreement for students arriving in the autumn semester takes effect from 1.9 you will be able to move in into the apartments during the pickup days in August without paying rent.

HOAS Application form and "Start date" / "End date"
The application form on the web asks you to mark the Start date/End date of your stay. You should fill in as the "Start date of exchange studies" your arrival date in August or January, for example the first Hanken pickup date. In any case your agreement will start 1.9 or 1.1, so it is not extremely important to have the exact date. As the "End date of exchange studies" you shall fill in 31.12 or 31.05. HOAS is informed about Hanken's semester dates. If needed for examination reasons in June, students can stay for the additional days by arrangement with HOAS.

NEW: Other reserved accommodation
As of autumn 2011 Hanken and the consortium of Higher Education Institutions in the Helsinki region reserve a number of places from a another housing provider, Forenom, www.forenom.fi in addition to HOAS. There are not enough places within the HOAS pool due to increasing number of incoming exchange students in the Helsinki region. We will contact all our exchange students who are not going to receive an offer from HOAS and inform about the other option. We are also informing the company about the students needing their services. Hanken reserves a number of rooms and provides the student data after which all contacts should be between the student and Forenom.

Finding accommodation on your own
We ask you to let us know (the International Office) in case you will not at all be using HOAS or other services we inform about. It is important to know how many places Hanken needs to allocate from our housing partners. We also want to stress that finding accommodation to reasonable rent in the open market is very difficult in the Helsinki region.

Accommodation IN VAASA

NB! According to a very recent decision by the Vaasa Student Residence Foundation VOAS, starting dates of tenancy agreements for incoming exchange students in the Autumn 2011 will only be 1 August or 1 September 2011. This means that arriving in late August will force the student to pay full rent for August.

Hanken has decided to postpone the semester start until 2 September 2011 as the first day of Orientation. Arrival days with the Pickup service by the Vaasa tutors is re-scheduled to 31.8 and 1.9. There will be a need to book a hostel for a night or two. You will be contacted with advise on where to look for inexpensive hostel/hotel.

Students going to Hanken's Vaasa campus are expected to apply for a VOAS room by sending an electronic application for accommodation directly to the Vaasa Student Residence Foundation VOAS and handle all the practical matters with them. The Centre for Research and International Affairs or the Office of Study Affairs at the Vaasa campus is not involved in the reservation of your accommodation in Vaasa.

Complete information about student accommodation, services, flats and locations, and the application form is available on the VOAS website at www.voas.fi. Once VOAS has filed your application for accommodation they will be in contact directly with you and send you an offer. You will be requested to confirm the offer by paying the deposit for the room. If needed, you should be in contact directly with VOAS in any matters concerning accommodation.

Keys upon arrival
If you ask for the pickup service in connection to uploading the Arrival data in Mobility-Online you are assisted by Hanken's exchange student tutors and they will pick you up at the airport/railway station. A tutor will take you to the apartment and will have the key. The arrival dates with tutors' pickup service in Vaasa in the autumn are 31.8 and 1.9 as mentioned above, due to the change in the VOAS tenancy starting dates. The arrival dates in January will remain as planned to be 16-17 January 2012, during two days before the mandatory Orientation course.

In case you are not able to arrive during the pickup days you shall contact the Office of Study affairs /Ms Kristina Wallin in Vaasa in addition to uploading the arrival information online.

We accept late arrival (not in time for the Orientation course) only if you have exams to take at home overlapping the Orientation course, or some severe personal hindrance.

Student Union membership

Membership in the Student Union of a higher education institution is mandatory in Finland. Exchange students at Hanken are going to be members of the Hanken Student Union and will in proof of that get the national Lyyra student ID card. This will entitle you to all the same benefits and discounts taht national students get. Find in the following documents information and instructions on how to get and pay your Student Union membership and fee and The Lyyra student card and fee .

The Student Union of Hanken (Svenska Handelhögskolans Studentkår) is a separate organisation and is not a part of the university. The Student Union has four main functions: to look after the interest of its members, to work as a link between its members and the university, to provide services and organize social activities. For information on the Hanken Student Union, please visit www.shsweb.fi/en. Hanken's Vaasa Campus has its own student Union, visit their web page at www.sshv.org

Info on 'Student' and 'Public' portals

On Hanken's web pages you will find more information useful for exchange students. See http://www.hanken.fi/public/en/kandidat and http://www.hanken.fi/public/en/fakta . By exploring the links on the Student-portal, you will get a good picture of the facilities and services offered at both of our campuses as well as of academic matters. An information package containing brochurses and practical information needed upon arrival will be distributed during the Orientation Course.

Orientation Course

All exchange students are requested to attend the Orientation Course to be held in the autumn on 24-26 August 2011 in Helsinki, on 2 & 5 September 2011 in Vaasa. The spring semester starts with Orientation on 18-20 January 2012 in both Helsinki and Vaasa. The Orientation Course will prepare you for the semester start and will help you to settle down in Helsinki or Vasa as smoothly as possible.