Pardon?

I feel like the majority of my texts has been about how amazing and wonderful and miraculous this whole process of getting myself into a university has been. While that's fine and completely true, I thought I should talk about some things that may not have been dealt with so smoothly, on my part as well as any other, just to maintain some sense of reality in all this.

Just a disclaimer: by no means am I saying any of this to be mean to anyone. If anything I am extremely appreciative of all the kindness, help and understanding I have received from my college, hall and student finance. When there are this many people coming from I don't even know how many countries I'd be surprised if there wasn't some occasional confusion.

The first time there was bit of miscommunication (no idea if that's a word, but you know) was when I sent proof of my final grades to my college. So I went and scanned my certificate, and got and e-mail saying that it needs to be translated to English, which I wasn't aware of. Now that I think about it, I'm quite convinced it was my mistake, I probably didn't pay attention when we were informed that a translation has to happen before sending any documents. Afterwards I have no idea what was going through my head when I was actually surprised by the fact that a Finnish document isn't much use to the university. But in the end, no harm done. I ordered an English copy of my certificate, It took no more than maybe eight days for it to arrive and the second time scanning and sending was a lot more successful. 

When there are students coming from so many different countries and educational systems, it's no wonder that some things need to be double-checked. One thing of this sort was, still regarding my certificate, my overall grade. Which we don't have in Finland at all. My university asked me to send something to confirm my overall grade and that was a source of mystification for me as I was clueless about what that meant. I ended up calling the university instead of using e-mails for I figured that would be faster and easier. And it surely was. I had a pleasant chat with the person who answered; I explained my situation and she was very understanding and said everything was fine. Later that day my application on UCAS was updated to "unconditional offer, firmly accepted". I felt so happy after because of that and the fact that the person I talked to was so friendly and helpful.

Some more excitement occurred when I applied for a student loan. The number of forms I had to fill out was something astronomical, but I didn't mind. There was a lot to power through, but everything was quite clear with the actual questions etc. I sent my application forms and then there was nothing but waiting as it usually takes about six weeks for you to get the confirmation of whether you will be getting a loan or not. In the meantime I took care of some other stuff like asking my hall when can I move in. My hall answered and there was no confusion with the moving but I was told there was some letters from student finance sent to the hall under my name. Again, mystified.

As it was proven to be a rather effective way of finding out how everything is, I called student finance. I asked about my application, if it was ok. The lady I spoke with told me not to worry, I was going to get my loan and the confirmation letter had been sent to my hall. So I e-mailed my hall saying that they have my confirmation letter and they offered to send it to me to Finland so I can check that there is nothing extra-important or urgent for me to sign. Today afternoon I was informed that my letters have been sent to me and should arrive in the beginning of next week.

So there were some things throughout the application process that made my blood pressure rise at the time, but everything was manageable. And this post is nowhere near something as dramatic as a "warning" of some things that may happen. Just throwing it out there, there can be some misunderstandings and that's good to be prepared for. These are the things I came across, I'm sure others have different stories like this to share, but the dénouement is the same: it's all fine in the end. 

What I love about English people is how they've internalized that it's no extra trouble to be nice and helpful. Whenever I spoke to someone on the phone, they ended the conversation with a "have a lovely day" and all the e-mails I've received have included a benevolent "we are looking forward to greeting you in September". I have no problem going over some things a couple times or more, when the people I'm doing that with are this pleasant.

Satu