363792

1

Exchange report – Monash University, Spring 2017 (G) After you received the confirmation from Monash that you are approved as an exchange student for the University, you have to send various documents over email, for example a transcript of records and a photo of the passport. It was all very easy and did not take much time. However, Monash University was not very quick contacting me and arranging my visa documents. I was getting worried about a month before my exchange started. I contacted the Monash exchange coordinator and she sent me mandatory documents to apply for a visa. It is also mandatory to pay for a health cover (OSCH) and it does not matter if you already have your own insurance. OSCH and student visa to Australia are fairly expensive but visa processing is very fast and you will get an electronic visa, so you do not have to print out anything. When checking the flights to Melbourne, I would highly recommend at least a three-day stop-over somewhere in Asia. You can get very cheap flights to Asia and then from Asia to Melbourne. In case you are in a hurry, would highly recommend checking one-stop options from Finnair or Qatar Airways. They are both decent companies but fares might be more expensive. You could get a free airport shuttle arranged by Monash at the airport, you have to book this few days in advance. Otherwise, you could use SkyBus which costs 15€ one-way to the city. It is recommended to search accommodation on the spot if you have not chosen on campus accommodation, which I would not recommend due to the distant location from the city. Monash had some deals with various hostels, I would highly recommend booking a hostel or first accommodation for one week or even for two weeks. You can get a discount by doing that and it is more convenient to search for an apartment when you don’t have to stress. You should be aware about the property market in Melbourne, which is overheating at the moment. There was huge amount of demand among the students. You can stop dreaming about your own studio. They have a few good web services where you can seek flatmates (e.g. flatmates). Airbnb is overpriced in Australia, because it is run by investors. Rental agents are not happy to make short contracts (under six months). When we at first arrived at Monash, it was easy to get to know people. The first week was orientation week for exchange students and the second week was orientation week for all students. Course offering was very wide, it is Australia’s largest university, which means that the possibilities are endless. I would recommend to study units at Caulfield campus if you are planning to live in the city. If you chose to live at campus, then I would suggest choosing units from Clayton. There were a lot of different units for every postgraduate major on both campuses. Some of the units were unreachable due to pre-requisites which was annoying. However, it was biased how they chose who could take some unit and who could not. If you are just willing to push yourself through the system at the office, you will get whatever you want. In the end, you might want to optimise your schedule that there are only a few days that you have to attend classes on campus, this would allow you to schedule longer trips for the weekends and plan your time in Australia with great freedom.

363792

2

Studying Getting your units approved was a huge mess. I would recommend weighing all your studies to Caulfield campus due to the location close to the city. They have a kind of high bureaucracy system regarding the pre-requisites, but as far as my experience goes you can go around that as I have mentioned before. You should try to pick the units that you are going to study for the first approval letter that you send to Monash. It would make your first weeks very nice. Most people in my classes came from Asia and most of them from China. I also made all my assignments with Asian people, that was a great experience. Studying there was not as intense as in Aalto. Lectures were published in the internet, and assignments were started approximately few weeks before due. Online quiz assignments were due more often but most of them were very simple and easy. All the exams where in a three-week period at the end of the semester. They were two hour exams and you needed to really rush in case you wanted to answer all the questions with detailed answers. Especially when there were calculations included in some exams. I would highly recommend avoiding units with final exams. The workload might feel bad during the semester but in the end grading is not that strict with during the semester assignments than with the final exams. Institutional asset and liability management (6 credits) If you are interested in banking this, is a good unit to create understanding how financial institutions work. Shrimal Perera was an excellent lecturer and super enthusiastic about the subject. The exam was 50% of total grade. There was also one large assignment included, which was a physical one. It took a lot of time but it was also rewarding. There is no unit like this in Aalto why it was very nice to get proper introduction to banks balance sheet and its management. You can see all lectures from the internet but I liked to be there on the spot and listen to the lecturer. I would highly recommend this unit for everyone. It is neither very technical and material provided is very good. You can make a beautiful journey with this unit just as the lecturer described. International banking (6 credits) Michael Skully was a lazy lecturer and slides were not up to date. They were forcing people to buy the course book. The unit was about international banking structures and industry knowledge. It was also about regulation and international financial centres. There were large and small themes and everything was mirrored to the US system. There was also a great number of discussions about the Australian banking, which was not in the scope of this unit. The unit was not good at all with this syllabus though they have changed it recently and they told that they will change it as well for the next year. It was an annoying unit about basically everything related to banking, without focus on anything special and very detailed niche information included from the banking history. I would not recommend taking this unit unless you want to

363792

3

spend long days in the library before the final exams. Nevertheless, the assignment was very simple and during the semester workload was very light. Australian capital markets (6 credits) This was an easy unit with basic financial math and basic financial theories. The unit also included some Australian legislation and industry specific cases though it was all explained through examples so it was easy to understand and learn. There was not too much work during the semester, only weekly online quiz assignments, which were relatively easy. The unit was a comprehensive all-round finance course, nothing too phenomenal. The unit was well taught and its examination was well in line with the themes taught during the semester. There were mandatory tutorial sessions every week, which was a kind of painful, but you could survive these sessions without really working too much during the semester. Other students, who took this unit where not aware even basic finance concepts. I felt as a finance genius always when I attended the classes. Assignment to this unit was also relatively easy, I would recommend this unit if you couldn’t find anything else interesting. Professional development – career dynamics (6 credits) The unit was about making LinkedIn profile and job applications. There were a great number of self-evaluation tasks, which created a baseline for larger essays (2000 words or 4000 words). Grading was not very strict with these assignments. On the top of these tasks, there was also roleplay activity included, which was a piece of cake. This was a very light unit, with easy assignments, if you ever have applied for a job the whole unit would be easy for you. You need to be social though during the workshops, because the workshops are in a way mandatory and they need everyone to participate in different activities in small groups. All in all, would not recommend this unit, because there was nothing new to me. There were also many people who were not motivated and they did not do preparation activities for the workshops, that were mandatory. Free time and other information The cost of living depended how much you go out. You could eat very cheap if you want to. Also living expenses, you can get down by choosing a location far from the city and shared bedroom. I would say that you can survive with a lower weekly budget than in Finland probably, because in Helsinki food is more expensive. I did not buy any books during my exchange semester, they cost almost A$ 100 each, so I considered it a wiser option to go to the library and read them on the spot. At campus, they don’t have as cheap food as we do but close to campus you can get relatively cheap food at least from Caulfield e.g. Thai/Chinese food. Distances from city to campus are relatively long and as a graduate student I was not allowed to get concession priced tickets, which was a big disappointment to me. I had to pay double fees in public transportation compared with bachelor students. Regarding the training during

363792

4

your exchange, I found Monash sporting club quite expensive compared with the other available options, that were also closer to my place. Most of the university clubs had their activities at Clayton campus, so joining these clubs was not an option for me due to the almost one-hour trip to Clayton from the city. There were a lot of exchange student events at first but after the first one month they stopped arranging them, which was a bad decision at my opinion. Monash Abroad had nominated a local buddy for each student. I was lucky with my buddy, because he was very active and was interested to show me around. That worked out well and I was happy with that system, but I still keep our tutor group system better than one to one buddy. Basically, you only met new people in the evening events, if you have had your own tutor group you could have more frequently met them. Actually, it was quite hard to catch up with a lot of different people due to the fact that Melbourne is spread out so wide and everyone lived in different parts of town.

The weather was super nice and warm when I arrived in Melbourne, at the beginning of February. It was like that until the end of April. Then it got cold and by the end of June it was around 10 degrees, so you need to pack your winter clothing, that is for sure. However, Melbourne is known as a place where weather changes rapidly. You have to always have long sleeves with you in case there comes a cold wave or an unexpectedly quick rain. The nicest area around the Melbourne CBD was definitely Fitzroy. I would still advise to search for accommodation in CBD/Richmond/South Yarra due to the closer location of the University. All suburbs are very nice and you can easily get everywhere with public transportation. During the semester, I did Great Ocean Road, a road trip to Tasmania and a weekend trip to Sydney. They also had Formula 1 Grand Prix during the semester in Melbourne, that weekend was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Melbourne. Australian Open tennis championships are earlier in the year, so I did not have a chance to participate in that event. Great Ocean Road is approximately 300km road along the coast to the west from Melbourne. It was nice to see many beaches, waterfalls and lookouts. There were a lot of different accommodation options available. I think most people are able to do it in a few days and maximum days to spend would be four or five days. If you spend four or more days on the great ocean road, you could include some surfing lessons or serious hiking routes to your schedule. Sydney is a great city to pay a visit, Opera House and Harbour Bridge is worth to see. Also beaches close to town are very nice. You can fly Australian domestic flights with very low costs with Jetstar which is a subsidiary of Qantas and on-board service is decent. In Sydney accommodation is very expensive as well as in Melbourne. You can book cheap hostels in the CBD, which we experienced as a good option. Sydney nightlife is definitely worse than Melbourne, but I would still advise to give it a shot. The Manly beach and The Bondi beach are nice, basically Sydney is a large tourist trap but still a must-see spot.

363792

5

The Tasmanian road trip we did for one week mid-semester break. We did not hurry during our stay there and our days and we mostly spend hiking or checking out some lookouts. Hobart was indeed a very nice city and if you end up there, their modern art museum is definitely worth going. You can just drive around Tasmania and get fascinated by the great nature. It is definitely less crowded than areas around the Australian east coast. Car fees were not that expensive when divided between five people and petrol is approximately 1€/litre. Since, that is a good way to move around and explore. The flights to Asia from Melbourne were not that expensive but I decided to stay in Australia during the whole time. Flights to Asia are usually overnight flights and it would take you approximately 8 hours, but if you want to save money and don’t have time to travel to Asia before or after your exchange would definitely recommend that option for mid-semester break. I was expecting probably too much from Australia in general. I truly enjoyed my time but the units are better in Aalto and the school is still a big part in exchange. I would say that Australia was a good place to stay for one semester probably two semesters would have been too much for me. The culture is very much similar to Europe, with one exception, it is only a few hundred years old. Melbourne has won multiple awards as the most liveable city in the world and that was exactly what it was. I would recommend Monash to future students, there were a lot of different units to take. Some of them are high quality and some not that good. I think it is like that in every university also in Aalto. At least you have a lot of possibilities. I know that I can’t really compare it with anything relevant but everything worked in Monash very well. I was happy with my experience and connections I made. The key learning points for me were how setup a life, in a five million people city with only one suitcase and no friends. I managed that mission perfectly and truly enjoyed my life abroad. Melbourne is also a lovely city, I will definitely be back some day!