International Master’s programmes a welcome challenge

The Department of Computer Science can face a new era next autumn, as two out of three specialisation programmes at the Master’s level are planning to adopt English as their teaching language. In future, the courses of Algorithms and machine learning as well as Distributed systems are considered to be given in English, while Software systems continues in Finnish.

Annually, only an estimated 60-70 students graduate as Masters from the Department of Computer Science, while nearly double that amount complete their Bachelor’s degree.

Since Finnish students do not continue to the Masters level, we wish to attract students from abroad by internationalising the teaching. With this reformation, it will be easier for them to attend lectures and exercise sessions instead of studying by themselves.

The goal is not to exclude Finnish students from their studies with a language barrier. The department hopes that most of the students will still be Finns in future. Perhaps some 25% of graduates could be foreigners.

- The larger number of Master’s students ensures that we can offer teaching based on research and a wider range of courses, says Hannu Toivonen, former chair of the department, who supported the reformation.

Jesse Lankila, student and in charge of studies in the student union TKO-äly, thinks the reformation is a good thing. He recommends that students try working in English.

- There are some who may experience difficulties when studying in English. If you are truly interested in a subject, I don’t think the language will pose any problems. The terminology in this field is mainly based on English, and in working life we will inevitably interact with foreigners, so I think it is a valuable experience for students to study in a foreign language and with people from other countries.

Lankila believes that the language change will diversify the teaching more and more.

- Teachers may come from other countries, and the department will gain more fame abroad if students graduate from here.

Though the teaching will be given in English, students will still be able to take separate exams in Finnish. Pirjo Moen, who has participated in the reorganisation, promises that there will still be seminars conducted in Finnish every year. Whether exercise sessions will be given in Finnish remains to be seen.

According to Moen, the internationalised Master’s programmes have attracted attention already, as witnessed by the increasing number of applications.

- Studying and teaching in English is a challenge that we may all benefit from.

 

by Viivu Toikka

Created date

22.02.2010 - 01:00

Tsinghua Workshop - Strengthen Collaboration with Top Universities in China

 

Together with research teams in Tsinghua University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Professor Sasu Tarkoma, Prof. Yong Li, and Prof. Pan Hui organized a successful workshop on mobile big data and networking (url:http://fi.ee.tsinghua.edu.cn/2015workshop/) in September 2015.

 

 

Computational modelling sheds new light on core cell functions

An advanced computational model developed by computer scientists has revealed long delays in gene regulation.

 

The fields of genetics and genomics have developed rapidly during the past years, partly due to better computational methods. Now an international research group led by Finnish researchers has developed a new computational model, which has revealed unexpectedly long processing delays in gene expression following a regulatory signal.

Jiaheng Lu: our new Associate Professor

 

Jiaheng Lu (JL) has been nominated as a tenure-track Associate Professor in computer science for a period of five years starting on August 1, 2015. Recruiting foreign professors is an important tool in the internationalization efforts of the University, so a thorough introductory interview by the head of the Department (JP) was a must.

 

 

Petri Myllymäki to be director of HIIT

Petri Myllymäki, professor at the department, has been elected director of HIIT (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology), the joint research institute of the University of Helsinki and Aalto University, for the five-year period starting on 1 August, 2015. Petri will be following Professor Sami Kaski of Aalto University in this post. Since the post of director of HIIT is a fulltime job, Petri (PM) will be relieved of his own professorial duties for the same period, and so the head of the department (JP) saw fit to conduct an exit interview with him.