Letter Home - Pasi Karjalainen

1. In what country and University are you studying?

I was studying in United States at University of Central Arkansas

2. In what Study program are you studying at Centria?

Information Technology.

3. What are the courses like at the host University

The courses at UCA are somewhat similar to courses at Centria, at least in Computer Science department. Classes can be small but also fairly big with 20-40 students. My classes had 10-30 students. The classrooms are about the same size as in Centria, but they also have small auditoriums where they also teach, those were the best kind of classrooms

4. Describe the study culture?

Study culture is also somewhat similar, a bit more study oriented than in Finland. In our classes people started to do the assignments right there when they were assigned if the professor gave permission to do then, libraries were always full of people studying and people would do projects on groups even though the projects were for individuals.

5. What is your study group like?

I usually studied alone but occasionally did assignments in groups, then it was usually me and couple Americans. They were great people, our thinking process matched and it was pleasant working with them.

6. Please describe what the everyday life is like in your host country? What do you like in particular?

Somewhat similar to Finnish life. There were some differing things, like people would use shoes inside their houses, streets didn’t usually have means of transport other than cars, or other motorized vehicles, church was big thing as lots of people went to church on Sundays and the church was apparent in many local afterschool events. Food there was interesting as a Finnish: Instead of potatoes there were usually sweet potatoes, meat was mainly beef and often food was greasy.

7. What has been challenging? Why? 

As I liked being alone often, going to stores were most challenging. Nearest store was Kroger in maybe about 2 kilometers away, but the roads to it were mostly roads for cars, so cycling was interesting. To be fair, cycling wasn’t dangerous, but it was still scary to cycle with cars. Usually I took a longer trip to Walmart where I could take a local cycling path which started about half a kilometer from school. Sometimes talking were hard, I could think of something I would want to say in Finnish, but because I wasn’t experienced English speaker, it was sometimes hard to come up with some words or good way to say what I wanted.

8. What has been the highlight of your exchange so far?

Highlight was probably all the trips I took with my good American friend, Aaron.  We met almost immediately when I came to Conway, I believe it was on the same day or at least the next day. 

We took couple trips outside Conway during the spring, one to Petit Jean state park which was really beautiful and cool place, but when we were there, there was a heavy fog, so we couldn’t see any scenery but the trails we walked were good and we had a good time. Petit Jean State Park | Arkansas State Parks

Other time we had an adventure where we cycled to Little Rock from just outside of it totaling to about 41 kilometers. Took us 2 and half hours but it was worth it.