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It's an accredited, official, Master of Science in Economics, with Accounting as the major subject. Your title, when graduating, will be M.Sc. (econ.). It's not an MBA (which can be almost anything), or a diploma of some kind.
For people who are interested and have the prerequisites. Perhaps the most logical or typical applicant would be somebody with a bachelor's degree in accounting who would like to add two concentrated years of financial information systems on top of that, in order to become an accountant who really understands information systems. But we do have students with extremely different backgrounds - a desire to proceed to a career connected with financial information systems is, of course, a common trait.
No, this is not necessary at all - in fact, it is not necessarily even desirable. We assume basic user-level experience of computers, start from essentially zero, and progress fast. If you have computer programming experience, some things will be easier, but on the other hand some of the added value in attending the program is lost. This is not really a program for computer programmers, nor is it a program that will make you a professional programmer. It is, basically, a program for people with a business economics background, typically accounting, who wish to learn about how advanced financial information systems work, and how they can be utilized. It turns out that a certain amount of hands-on experience is a necessary component in learning this, so yes, you will spend time in effect programming computers. But this is more of a means than an end.
A very mixed group of very nice people. Some have come directly from completing their undergraduate studies. Some have interrupted careers as accountants, auditors, software developers, entrepreneurs, doctoral students and many other things in order to join the program. They have been male and female in reasonably equal proportions, of widely different ages, and of all colours and complexions except perhaps bright blue.
From all over the world. We've had students from at least 20 countries, with people from other countries than Finland outnumbering the locals by about five to one.
In principle, we expect that graduates from our program will find employment where expertise in what makes financial information systems tick is valuable – in consulting firms, with auditors, with software houses, and with the IT and financial departments of large companies. In practice, we know that some of the people who have already graduated have taken up positions as auditors, software consultants, and doctoral students. Currently, companies that we know employ graduates from our program include Accenture, Nokia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Roche, TietoEnator, and some smaller software consultancies.
The latest figures that we have are for the 2005-07 program: There were 72 applicants, and we accepted 24, aiming for a group of approximately 20 students.
The programs start in September, every year, and the applications are due early in the spring. Check the web site for exact dates as they are finalized.
Please become comfortable with the thought of applying next year for the next program. Since this is the only option, you might as well be comfortable with it.
By downloading the application form from the web site, and following all the instructions on and with it. The application form for the next program will be available in the late autumn of the preceding year.
The baseline requirement is that you, as an applicant, have a bachelor's degree from a recognized, accredited university. Degrees from two year programs, irrespective of what they are called, do not fill this requirement. You also have to have course credits, within this degree or outside of it at an equivalent level, in economic and/or business subjects equivalent to a certain minimum number of credits, and a (smaller) number of these have to be in accounting or finance or the equivalent. There are also requirements for documenting your English language skills. Please check the application guide for details, as the exact requirements may change for new programs – as may their nature and number. But this has been the basic structure so far.
The baseline criteria are stringently checked and adhered to, and there is a reason for this. We add the nominal equivalent of two academic years of studies, 120 ECTS credits, on top of your previous degree and then graduate you with an accredited M.Sc. (econ.) degree. In order to be able to do this we have to be absolutely certain that your previous studies can, in effect, be exchanged for the B.Sc. level studies at our school. And because we value the reputation of our degree we can not and will not compromise on this point.
No, it doesn't work that way. You have to meet the baseline requirements before you can even be considered for admission. As a practical matter, all the undergraduate courses in accounting at this place are delivered in Swedish - so for most people in the world, the ones who do not speak Swedish, it would not work even if it was allowed, which it isn't. What you can do, of course, is first get the requisite accounting and/or business economics credits somewhere else, and then apply.
Never mind how you phrase it - that's actually quite low down on the list of things we look at. Please instead concentrate, first of all, on submitting a complete and unambiguous application, on the current year's application form, with all the required transcripts and certificates. Eloquent phrases don't actually get you very far if, for instance, the transcript of your previous studies is missing.
If you would like to do us a favor, it might be a very good idea to include a summary where you show us how - on what grounds - you consider that you fill the baseline criteria. For instance: Which, exactly, are the credits on your transcript that should be counted as accounting? How do you show the required English language proficiency?
It's a two-stage procedure. First, applications are sorted into two piles: Those that fill the baseline criteria and those that don't. The second category is not processed further – in fact, since this is done centrally by the study affairs people at the school, the program faculty never even sees these applications. Next, the applications that are eligible are evaluated by the program faculty according to the criteria set out on the application form. The applications are ranked, and the top ones are accepted.
The most common causes of applications being rejected at the "weeding out" stage seem to be the following:
Insufficient, or even no, economics and/or business course credits.
Insufficient documentation of English language skills.
As for the stage where we compare and rank applicants, there are no rejection criteria as such; it is a matter of ranking applicants based on the criteria set out in our admissions policy. Excellent grades in a good portfolio of courses within a suitable bachelor's degree is obviously better than barely passing grades in a marginally acceptable collection of courses within a dubious BA.
Well, having read literally hundreds of applications, we do unavoidably develop a bit of teflon coating here (this is your professor speaking, fresh from reading a barrelful). For instance, in the letters of motivation, applicants tend to devote quite a lot of space to explaining to us how wonderful our program, faculty, university and country are. The phrases are often lifted directly from promotional material put out by the university or tourism authorities. Let's put it this way - you can leave most of that stuff out and devote the space to more interesting things, and it will certainly not count against you.
This is a business school, and we feel obliged to adopt a business-like attitude to things. We do feel that poetry, metaphysics, religion, Nietsche, Hegel, Kant etc. are interesting and important. In fact, we think that they are even more interesting and important than business matters, but we think that in our spare time, since we are not paid to do it at work. Consequently, when applying for admission to a business school, Hegel is unlikely to help very much. We are not in that line of business.
Since we cannot, for practical reasons, interview even a subset of our applicants, we have to look at the applications also - forgive us - from this point of view: Is the applicant really sane? Applications with long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness discourses on the inner meaning of life, the universe and (occasionally) financial information systems sometimes raise serious doubts. We do understand and accept that there are cultural differences and different traditions of phrasing applications - don't worry about that. But we do, also, sometimes get applications from people who are obviously not quite right in the head.
Just like, for instance, most of the people who will eventually employ you, we are not really looking for misunderstood geniuses. We much prefer serious applicants with a good track record. A good way of indicating that you are a serious applicant would be to take the trouble to write an application that is really, evidently, directed to us - not an obviously generic, boilerplate thing, or even an application that seems to be directed to somebody else. Obtaining an MBA, for instance, can often be a very good idea. But since we do not provide one, it's no good applying to us. And if you do not know the difference between an MBA and an M.Sc. then do please find out.
Oh, and do not do obviously stupid things. The applicant who managed to send us two photocopies of an IELTS certificate from the exact same test session, but with different results marked, was obviously not admitted. Incidentally, if he had read the instructions he would have realised that since he'd graduated from an English-language university he did not (according to the requirements then in force) need to submit an IELTS certificate at all, and that we do not accept photocopies of IELTS or TOEFL certificates anyway. To crown it all, both the original and improved versions of the certificate still had too low marks, relative to our requirements. Sigh.
Anyone involved with admissions to an international program quickly becomes aware of a few slightly depressing facts of life. One is that there are very good reasons why the only IELTS or TOEFL certificate worth looking at is an original, sent directly from the testing organization to our university. A photocopy is simply no good. Another thing which is no good at all is a letter of reference which does not mention the name of the person it praises - we get a fair amount of these. Please bear this in mind.
Yes and no. There is the possibility of one, but it is not a practical arrangement, as the admissions decisions are made only a few months before the program starts, and we have people from all over the world applying. Instead, we normally accept somewhat more people than we really would like to have, and since some accepted applicants then choose not to join the program after all, it works out so that we have a full program quota. For instance, in the year 2005 we accepted 24 people for a target intake of 20.
Moderate bordering on zero. There's no tuition fee charged by the school as such, as the program is financed by a special grant from the Finnish Ministry of Education, who feel there's a need for professionals of the kind we graduate. However, there are mandatory student union fees, and then of course all students need to buy books, food, accomodation et cetera.
No. We fund the tuition, not the upkeep and expenses of students. Prospective Finnish applicants should be familiar with the state system for financing academic studies - it applies. Applicants from other countries should note that generally speaking very few countries have scholarships available that would cover expenses for incoming foreign students. Finland, in particular, does not. Most countries and organizations tend to fund students from home who go abroad to study. Hence, if you're looking for scholarships and grants, the place to start is with the authorities and organizations in your home country.
At a minimum, you will of course have to take the courses that comprise the main contents of the program, attend the seminars and write your M.Sc. thesis, and accumulate the required amount of electives including one language course. However, if you like, you can take other courses as well - though linguistic reasons will, for most of our students, limit the choice to courses taught in English. But there are dozens of those at our school, and subject to your meeting the course-specific prerequisites and being accepted by the examiner, you're perfectly entitled to take them. Your status, at the school, is that of a student at the university, with all the attendant rights, duties and privileges - one of which is to attend courses. However, please also see the next question.
The program is nominally equivalent to two academic years, and can be completed in two years of full-time studies without excessive difficulties.
However, the courses in the program are relatively time-consuming, heavy-duty ones, and writing a M.Sc thesis is a non-trivial project. A master's thesis is a major project, anyway, usually ending up at 60-100 pages of closely reasoned discourse and analysis, and typically requires quite timeconsuming empirical investigations in the library, lab and/or field. It is indeed perfectly possible to complete the courses and the thesis on schedule - in fact, most people so far seem to do it readily enough. However, completing all the courses and simultaneously say working to earn money more than a very few hours per week has turned out to be quite difficult.
Tough but useful - at least that is what we aim for. Browsing the course pages should give you a good idea of the structure and contents. Also, you might want to look at the letter we sent to accepted applicants.
By browsing this web site. Looking at the courses and exercises for previous programs should give a good idea about what it's all about, but do realize that we change and improve things, sometimes dramatically, from year to year.
There should be no need - all the information that is available in printed form is here, on the web site. When the application form for the next program is finalized, it will be on this web site as well. We'd hate to send you outdated, expired versions.
Please feel free to contact the faculty - send an e-mail, give us a call. We'll do our best to answer - but please, do look at the information available on the web first!