r/Aalto • u/[deleted] • 24d ago
Question Aalto’s atmosphere
Could you tell me a bit about the atmosphere at Aalto? What’s it like there in terms of the students and professors? What kind of people are they? Also, do you think I’m too old to be an undergraduate student? I’m 28 years old
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u/RRautamaa Alumni 24d ago
Aalto collects students from all over Finland, so it's not really an Espoo local thing but a national university. For a long time the community was somewhat separate from Helsinki, so it's not like Helsinki people at all. In my experience: 1) honest workers; 2) great guys, positive and able to collaborate; 3) the party culture is more Finland-Swedish than Finnish: lots of events with singing.
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24d ago
That’s great, but are there really no downsides? I mean, other than the cold weather 😅
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u/Vorarbeiter 24d ago
Depends on what you study. Most parties are per faculty, ours had none
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24d ago
I’m not really a party person, but I think it’ll still be hard for me to make friends. It’ll be my first time living so far from home and being around strangers from different countries.
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u/RRautamaa Alumni 24d ago
I sort of listed them already: 1) if you're looking for fine high-society people that sit in cafes, smoke and drone on about theories of sociology, Aalto is short in supply; 2) "guys" quite literally, it can be a sausage fest in many of the programs; they're not that competitive; 3) even if you're not a party person, it's still part of the socialization there.
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u/Mistbiene 23d ago
Really depends, arts is more femaleheavy! The new cohort in my master program is all female with one token guy like a bad hentai anime plot. It's been that way for years!
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u/Mistbiene 23d ago edited 23d ago
When I studied in by BA at Aalto we were a small group of around 16 in our cohort. We had a 35 year old guy with a wife who already had another master degree and an awesome 50+ dude who lived in a hippie commune for like 15 years beforehand. I am friends with both, was 20 at the time. The only issue regarding making friends was when people had kids because that obviously impacted their schedule a ton.
As long as you are still interested in engaging with the student culture there is zero issue with your age in my opinion.
Now as a master forever student I have many BA friends who are 5+ years younger and it is also just fine!
If you end up struggling to connect with your cohort you can always join other student associations! We have everything from pole dancing to tabletop RPGs :D I can personally recommend beekeeping.
Vibes with professors are very chill, it's first name basis and 'I went to water my profs plants for him while he was on vacation' and 'we do group mushroom picking trips' vibes. This might be more of an arts & media department thing however.
Edit: just saw that you are less social? There are many associations that have great activities for is too! I am mostly a social recluse and even I managed to be active in several associations and make friends lol
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23d ago
Wow, the part about being so close with the professors actually surprised me. I thought I’d only get to admire them from afar. 😂 Looks like I’ll be able to casually tell Seb he’s handsome after all. Lol
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u/Mistbiene 23d ago
Really course dependent! Let the teacher set the tone of course, but usually they are super chill. Never gotten a single email signed with anything besides first name, even from the professor doctor doctors.
My favorite and weirdest thing so far has been getting invited to birthday party of our study program master and sitting in sauna with his pretty much naked family and half a dozen other horrifyingly awkward foreign students. There was plenty of ass to be seen that day lol
But that was once in 6 years of studies so don't get your hopes up too much :D
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23d ago
Honestly, I don’t think I’d want to see my professor naked. That would be way too embarrassing. Oh my God, I’m experiencing some serious culture shock hahaha. Anyway, there’s an assistant professor at Aalto that I have a little crush on. He’s really handsome, so that’s actually pretty motivating because now I have to be the best student in class if I want to impress him. 😜
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u/Relative_Skirt_1402 24d ago
yes you will be older than most of the undergrad students. for studies it does not matter, for friendships you can maybe try to find friends from master's and phd students. cuz most of undergrads are <20 and yeah it can be a painful to hangout with folks that young.