Ministry of Education / Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Experience after experience, we all were learning about new parts of Finnish culture along with customs and modern issues that pieced it all together. Thursday morning we would discover more about our host country with a new in-depth view into both its future and stand in world affairs. Providing the new insight were programs and presentations held at both the Finnish Ministry of Education and then the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday morning. With both buildings on our schedule we had a very full and informational day ahead of us.
The Ministry of Education promoted much interest within our group since it proposed and outlined not only the educations and lifestyles of students our age studying in Finland - but also the potential for foreigners studying abroad in Finland. The subject of the presentation was largely on the topic of Finland's emphasis on education and how that provides a positive outlook for a successful Finnish nation still in the future. Along with this subject of the future - our own futures were discussed since there were many promising and impressive opportunities awaiting us if we ever felt the drive for adventure to study in Scandinavia. The meeting was very neat since we were seated around a very large conference table in which we had coffee with the minister of education herself, along with another Representative of the ministry, both of whom were going to share with us the goals and guidelines on education in Finland. The minister welcomed us and shared her excitement of being able to share the morning along with us American students. I had the great opportunity to represent our group and formally thank the minister for the hospitality and information provided by the ministry and it employees. Standing up and shaking hands with the minister after sharing a few words of appreciation really set the tone that I was doing some incredible things over the week's time and I was meeting some very important people as well while learning so much.
The meeting itself was filled with many statistics and impressive facts pertaining to Finland's great emphasis on education in its country and its strong successes. In discussion about colleges many of us were very surprised by one detail that was actually in direct accordance to us. Finland takes pride in offering education for free all the way through college. This is no exception for foreigners, and although it is still rather undiscovered now, there are many great opportunities and possibilities to receive an education in Finland coming from anywhere in the world. Major Finnish universities including Helsinki University, Helsinki school of Economics, and Turku University offer full curriculum in English are are already prominent in the European education scene, and are constantly gaining more positive credibility as time passes as well. The idea to us high school students of a free education overseas was phenomenal and made all of our imaginations start pondering how neat the experience could be. Many of us were very excited about the idea of a semester or two along with a few credits in a Finnish school to not only utilize the opportunities available to us, but also have a solid chance to come back to Finland with a definite purpose ( and all of us really were already planning on when we were coming back!). The Ministry of Education opened our eyes to not only the growing and positive future of Finland through education, but also the futures of ourselves and how Finland can once again be a great part in our academic journeys.

What was so amazing about Thursday was that the next step in our daily agenda was just as exciting. For another morning meeting followed by a hosted lunch, we traveled to another Finnish governmental facility which was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There we were going to gain some very Finland-specific knowledge in regards to some topics that we were all very curious about. Many of us had asked questions throughout the summer pertaining to Finland's involvement in the world as well as how it functioned in the European political scene, and to the benefits of our curiosities, we had a whole presentation during the late morning which was going to answer all of our questions. Throughout the morning we were greeted by many important Representatives and workers of the ministry and each had a little something different to share with us. Beginning our meeting, all of the American students were led to a viewing office with a large screen to preview slide shows and movies. The first subject of discussion was Finnish tourism, and in connection with this one of the ministries large projects : their web page - http://virtual.finland.fi/. From this we had a great direct view into the nature, architecture, culture, design, and festivities of Finland - a large collage of everything that we had been experiencing all summer bundled up nicely together. For me at least, it was comforting to see everything so organized there, because at the rapid rate in which I had learned about the nation and Finnish culture and then to document any form of chronology or order of it, in my head even, felt overwhelming - whereas there on the site, everything was presented concisely and articulately. Further presentations included videos about the regions of Finland and what special things they offered as well as a crash course on the History of Finland's international diplomacy. This was especially interesting because we went over so much important material in such a quick amount of time, yet, everything was very interesting. The information included wars and relations with Finland's neighbors, Russia and Sweden, and later on Independence and, even more recently, European Union inclusion. This sparked my interest since I honestly did not know much about any political matters in the E.U., and after hearing about Finland's history, its views on Foreign Policy, as well as the knowledge I gained from the parliament the day prior, I realized that there was a lot of important world issues that I was naively overlooking in my everyday life.

Following the presentations, the ministry itself was actually hosting us for a very nice lunch inside of the very building. It was in a way surreal sitting at tables in the ministry having lunch along side very important diplomats while being engaged in some very interesting conversation dabbling into Finnish culture, recent news, and global politics. As our very exciting lunch wrapped up we still had one presentation awaiting us in the ministry. The final subject to preview was that of Finland/U.S. relations specifically. This was a very neat and unique subject because it was the most directly related to the challenge of observation that us American teenagers followed through while living abroad in Finland. The premises of the discussion were based around the history of political matters between Finland and the U.S. and in this presentation moreover, the economics and trade between the two nations. It was quite amazing to think that the nation of was very small and relatively overlooked when reviewing international issues to then simply see just how many items in our everyday lives come out of Finland! Nokia, Kone ( many of the escalators we ride on everyday are from Finland!), Fiskars ( I was amazed ! - the scissors I used everyday in elementary school were from Finland the whole time!) and many others were some of the major ones, to just name a few. As everything concluded, all of us were still very surprised and amazed at not only the knowledge we gained, but also the vast amount of incredible events we were taking part in and the people that we were meeting. The excitement of the morning left us extremely motivated since we had an entire afternoon ahead of us to pioneer new areas of Helsinki, which was a city constantly revealing its staggering opportunities, and to discover all the intricacies that make it outstanding.