Tampere University Public Health

biscayne · Post by **biscayne** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:14 pm

A neighbour's offspring has just been accepted to the University of Tampere for an International Masters in Public Health. Does anyone out there have any direct experience of this programme that I could share with her? She's interested in staying in Finland (love - yawn.....) and so want's to know are there any actual job opportunities in Finland with this programme or it is geared towards graduates going home and working in their own systems? Anyone got any infor?

The other thing, is the University of Tampere different to the Technical one in the Hervanta area? I can't seem to quite see the difference (it's in terms of her getting accomodation) Look, I know she can do her own research and she will, but just if anyone happened to have a bit of basic info: best place to live nearby etc. She won't get student housing she's been told already, but can afford a studio or one bedroom.

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Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 2:04 pm

Those universities are not the same, uta.fi vs. tut.fi

biscayne · Post by **biscayne** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 10:41 pm

So, if I understood you correctly, the people you knew/knew of, who did the masters in public health, are now cleaners? Seriously? There basically are no jobs in Finland with this degree (unless you speak perfect Finnish I assume, then there might be something??)

Querfeldein · Post by **Querfeldein** » Sun May 03, 2015 12:16 am

To roger_roger: I obviously cannot speak with any authority here, but I find this hard to believe, too. Are you sure your friends are representative?

To biscayne: At my university, we follow-up on our graduates' career paths, the fraction of them who go on into further education; the fraction who are in full-time employment, their starting salaries, etc. Newspapers here in the UK even compile ranking of these metrics, for universities as well as for many individual courses. Now, not every country is as obsessed with rankings, but I am sure there are some statistics available in Finland, too.

If all our graduates ended up as cleaners, we would quickly lose funding (after all, the government pay us to train specialists). Why don't you enquire at the University of Tampere if they have some statistics about this?

betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Sun May 03, 2015 11:14 am

Querfeldein wrote: If all our graduates ended up as cleaners, we would quickly lose funding (after all, the government pay us to train specialists). Why don't you enquire at the University of Tampere if they have some statistics about this?

How people do after studies is not part the funding criteria for Finnish universities:

http://www.minedu.fi/export/sites/defau ... i_2015.pdf

Querfeldein · Post by **Querfeldein** » Mon May 04, 2015 11:33 am

Of course, Finnish universities are just as interested in the employment of their graduates as universities everywhere else.
Tampere University actually publish quite comprehensive statistics:

http://www.uta.fi/opiskelu/tyoelama/seu ... index.html

The most up-to-date (for 2013 graduates, published in 2015) is here:

http://www.uta.fi/opiskelu/tyoelama/seu ... 202013.pdf

Unfortunately, I don't speak enough Finnish yet to translate it for you, but I would again encourage you
to email or call the university. They clearly have all the data, and I am sure they can help you.

Also, here is a report about the employment situation of international graduates from higher education in Finland:

http://www.helsinki.fi/urapalvelut/valo ... ALOA09.pdf

From the summary: The study shows that 70% of the international graduates are currently employed.
Among those who are not employed, 61% are undertaking further studies and 11% are doing an internship.
That means that 88% of the 2009 and 2010 graduates are either employed or pursuing further studies.

I highly doubt that those employed all work as cleaners and paper boys / girls.

The report also mentions the important factors for finding employment in Finland by international graduates, and
makes suggestions for improvements to the system, which could also be useful advice to students. For example, it
states that language skills are important, but students are often not satisfied with the language training they receive.
This is mentioned as a suggested improvement to the system, but for a student, it might be prudent to make an extra
effort in this area.

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Mon May 04, 2015 2:42 pm

roger_roger wrote:In Helsinki it might be different case due to huge university (Aalto).

tut has 8500 students, uta 15000. Aalto is slightly larger at 20000 students. So I wouldn't say huge. Larger certainly, but not huge. They do have a lot more staff though.

Querfeldein · Post by **Querfeldein** » Mon May 04, 2015 5:05 pm

The second pdf I linked to, and from which I quoted, draws from international students across Finnish
universities and colleges, including Tampere, although it is published by Helsinki University.

http://www.helsinki.fi/urapalvelut/valo ... ALOA09.pdf

It breaks down the statistics by place of origin, field of study, as well as type of employment and sector of
employment. You will see that a majority of the university graduates who responded are in full time
employment, and of those graduates who are in employment, more than two thirds are either "satisfied"
or "very satisfied" (Fig 3-20), and a large majority also stated that the job they work is at a level commensurate
with their level of education (Fig 3-29). Unless you think that this data is fake as well, it appears that university
graduates who end up as cleaners and paper boys / girls are the exception rather than the rule.

Of course, this does not mean that every graduate has it easy, or that a degree is a jobs guarantee, far from
it - in fact, I think it has become quite a bit tougher in the last decade or so. It is also true that the median
income of recent graduates is quite low (around €2500 for international university graduates according to this study),
which probably reflects a tough job market. However, at least statistically, foreigners who study at Finnish universities
are more likely than not to end up in full-time employment.

AldenG · Post by **AldenG** » Mon May 04, 2015 11:56 pm

How the hell many paper newspapers and ad circulars do Tamperelaiset read? That would be a huge number of newspaper deliverers.

And it must be a stunningly clean city as well, with so many university-educated cleaners.

Not one of the dozens of uta graduates I know has ever held a cleaning job. I know one who had a paper delivery job as an undergrad.

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Wed May 06, 2015 9:02 am

The study shows that 70% of the international graduates are currently employed. Among those who are not employed, 61% are undertaking further studies and 11% are doing an internship. That means that 88% of the 2009 and 2010 graduates are either employed or pursuing further studies.

I skimmed through the report and noted the following:

- the sample size was 363 (response rate 21%)
- the sample includes 105 graduates from the EU
- approx 64% of the respondents had studied in Helsinki including 21.3% from Aalto and 15.7% from Helsinki Uni
- 196/363 of the respondents had graduated from university Masters programmes
- 25% of the respondents gave "family ties" as their reason for studying in Finland
- "employment" includes self-employment
- "employment" includes those working abroad

It has been acknowledged that the response rate in the VALOA survey was relatively low (21.3%), which is
one of the limitations of the study.

The top ten nationalities included China (n=68), Russia (33), Germany (23), USA (13), Estonia (11), India (11) and Nigeria (11), Kenya and Pakistan (10) and Italy (9).

The results are interesting but the sample is clearly not representative of the international student population in Finland today. In 2012, according to CIMO, 40.9% of Foreign students studying for degrees in Finland were from Asia and 14.2% from Africa (only 6% in the sample).

This is also interesting (2012) : http://www.cimo.fi/instancedata/prime_p ... 2b2012.pdf

The employment picture of international students changes, if we study the number of those who have found a job in Finland against the number of all international graduates of 2007 and not only against those who have stayed in Finland. In this case, fewer than half or 49% of the graduates were in employment in Finland one year after graduation. More than half of the international students with a higher education degree in Finland thus end up using their skills and competences outside the Finnish working life, either by choice or involuntarily. The Finnish labour market does not appear to make very active use of foreign nationals’ skills.

For many foreign students (ie those from outside the EU) staying in Finland without a job is not an option due to residency regulations. So they leave the country and "fall off the radar". Therefore, it is probably not surprising that 70% of foreign graduates are in employment (they could not stay here legally without work). The CIMO survey does not comment on the nature of the jobs of those in employment.

And YLE: http://yle.fi/uutiset/foreign_graduates ... et/7656719

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