Universities in Finland offer long summer break (mid-May till late-August), but a lot of new students will be having a doubt of what to be done/ can be done during summer break.
Below are a few tips to inspire how you can spend you long summer break in Finland.
Travel
If you are kind of person that likes travelling, then summer would be the best time for you whether you travel within Finland or outside of Finland.
If you are interested in exploring Finland during the long break, do check out the official travel guide Visit Finland at: https://www.visitfinland.com/en/.
Improving skills
Summer is the time, where we will be having a lot of time. If we spend one hour daily on learning a new skill or developing the existing skills, we will already become a pro in that by end of summer break. What to learn? Check out the following links for some inspiration.
Devops for begging: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/evolve-your-devops-practices/
Aws: https://aws.amazon.com/training/
Marketing: https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/student/collection/654330-digital-marketing?locale=en-GB
Basic designer course: https://www.canva.com/designschool/courses/Universities
Studying
I guess a lot of you might know it already: you could also study in summer! There will be some courses opened that are particularly designed for summer. Like they will be remote. Therefore, you don’t really need to travel to attend classes. What´s more, you can gain credits from some of the courses.
HAMK Open University: https://www.hamk.fi/open-university/?lang=en
More studying opportunity in Finland: https://opintopolku.fi/konfo/en/
Work placement, internship, and summer jobs
If you want to work during the summer, you should start applying for vacancies at the latest in February. It would be the best if you find work related to your studies, so that you can also fulfil the work placement for your degree studies. Read more: Work placement for English taught degree programmes at HAMK.
Finding work for summer is not easy. You need to be prepared and work hard on it. There are a lot of job portals where you can search for open vacancies and send applications: job portals and recruitment platforms. Important: check out the possible regulations for work and internship during studies if you are from outside of Finland. In addition, take care of the tax card and tax issues with carefulness.
Finnish language learning or language learning
Learning languages would be the one thing that can make you feel achieved by the end of the summer. It has a lot of perks, so it is one good thing to try. If you plan to stay in Finland, learning Finnish language is a must. But you can of course learn other languages based on your own needs and interests.
Finnish language learning resources:
Kielibuusti: https://www.kielibuusti.fi/en
Other languages:
Valkeakoski Lifelong Learning Centre
Other possibilities
Doing voluntary work during summer can help you build up valuable network, develop essential work life skills and sustain your hobbies. Read more: https://www.infofinland.fi/en/leisure/voluntary-work.
Tips for students in the IT field: in the summer, there could be some hackathons or some other things like IGNITE, which will be held every summer and good thing about that was it gives a scholarship and also give credits so you could also get student benefits during summer. Find out more at https://ignite.aaltoes.com.
Dear HAMK International students/alumni, if you are interested in sharing your living and leisure time activity experience, please contact Talent Boost mentor at qingyang.li@hamk.fi.
- Editor
- Qingyang Li, Talent Boost mentor from HAMK International
