Perks of being a student in Aalto and Finland

Hi there!✨✨ My name is Vitória, and I am a 3rd year Design & Media BA student at Aalto University:) I am originally from Lisbon, Portugal. One question I get a lot is why I chose to study in Finland. While the university and degree itself played the biggest role, I was also motivated by the student benefits here in Finland. While the overall living cost in Finland is quite high compared to most countries around the world, being a student you get a lot of discounts and support for example in housing and meals. Besides those, you also get access to tools and services to support your studies, while allowing you to save up. Whether you’re a student from Finland, from an EU country, or from outside the EU, these are some things you will be able to use by being a student at Aalto University:

Aalto University Student Union Membership

When starting your studies at Aalto University, you need to become a member of AYY (Aalto Student Union) to access student benefits such as student housing and the student card app (Frank). The membership currently costs 65€ per academic year and I can’t start describing how essential it is!! You will be reminded about this when you receive your study place and start your enrolment process. For more information about AYY, check their website: https://www.ayy.fi/fi.

Student Housing

As an Aalto University student, you can apply for student housing through AYY (Aalto Student Union) or HOAS (Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region). They offer various affordable options like rooms in shared apartments, studios, family, and friend apartments across Helsinki. Since demand exceeds availability, apply as soon as possible after receiving your acceptance letter, select multiple options, and accept your first offer. You can stay in the apartment as long as you have a study right. Note that apartments are usually unfurnished, but second-hand furniture is easily available through recycling centers, Telegram, or Facebook Marketplace. For more info, visit their websites:

AYY housing: https://www.ayy.fi/en/housing, HOAS: https://hoas.fi/en/

Frank App (Student Card)

The Frank app is your digital student card. You can use it to get discounts on student meals at the student canteens, but also in some other restaurants, museums, events, or retail stores. After you pay the AYY membership, install it and log in. You may also request a physical card. In Finland, you don’t need a physical card, but when traveling to another country, they may only accept physical student cards to get you a student discount.

Student Canteens

International students are always amazed by this! By being a student, you can get discounted prices in all canteens in Finland! That means you can get a full meal, which includes salad, bread, main course, a drink and most of the time fruit, for 2,95€. Not only at the over 10 canteens available on the Aalto University campus (Otaniemi) but also in other parts of the Helsinki area. Also, menus change in the different canteens, and there are always at least 2 menu options. You can check the available menu options as well as the canteens’ opening hours at https://kanttiinit.fi/.

Aalto Space App

Aalto is a quite big university with different buildings and spaces for lectures, study, or meetings. It may be quite confusing at the start to navigate these initially unfamiliar places. However, by installing the Aalto Space app you can easily find your lecture classrooms, studio, or workshop spaces! Besides that, this app also allows you to book for example meeting rooms for you to work with your team on group projects.

Workshops and studios

If you’re interested in Arts and Design like myself, look forward to the amazing workshop facilities at Aalto University! While these are mainly available for students to do their coursework and study-related projects, do not hesitate to contact workshop masters if you want to learn a specific technique. Learn more about the workshop at Aalto University here: https://www.aalto.fi/en/arts-infra.

Aalto Primo and Aalto Learning Centre

Some courses might require doing your research and reading papers. Aalto Primo is a platform where you can get access to digital journals, papers, and books for free as a student! When logged in with your Aalto account you can get numerous sources, as well as websites that would normally have a paid subscription. Besides the digital sources, you can also request physical books from the Aalto Learning Centre (Aalto Library). You can borrow books for a set period as in any other library.

Aalto Take Out

Aalto Take Out allows students to borrow equipment such as iPads, cameras, microphones, and much more to use for their projects. This is one of my favorite services at Aalto! I don’t own my tablet and camera, so when I need it for a course or project, I book it from Take Out for a few days or weeks. It’s a free service and they have very high quality and useful equipment!

Aalto Computer Access

Speaking on behalf of design students some graphic design and 3D modeling tools can not only be expensive but also quite heavy for some computers to run them. At Aalto University, you can not only access the physical computers at the university facilities with all the essential software you may need for courses (Rhino 3D, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign…) but also remotely through your personal laptop! Aalto has a system for you to connect your laptop to one of the school ones and be able to work for example from home on your school projects.

These were only some of the perks of studying at Aalto University and in Finland! Whether you’re a student thinking of applying or you’ve just started your studies at Aalto, I hope this information was useful😊

Thank you for reading!

Best wishes,

Vitória 

PS. You can chat with me and other Aalto Squad student ambassadors on Unibuddy.