Greetings, all excited voters and other people!
My name is Santeri Ylitervo and I’m a third-year Computer Science student. Since I’m afraid of graduating too fast, I’ll be applying for the role of International Captain of 2025. Jokes aside, I became interested in the role last year while tutoring international students and finding it a very pleasant experience. Moreover, winning the extremely coveted “tutor of the year”-badge also gave me confidence that I know what I’m doing. And so, when my good friend Atte Ikola was also interested in the role, we thought “[redacted], let’s do it” and so, here is my application (and be sure to read Atte’s application as well).
Previous captains, committees and Isos have done a great job, and we want to keep the streak going. While discussing plans with Atte, we found two areas that felt most important to us: diversifying events aimed at international students and developing interdisciplinary connections.
We want international students to get more varied fuksi experience. I love sitsis as much as the next person but after a while they tend to blend into each other. A good example of the kind of events we want to encourage and help organize is lättysci/sciller on the loose/the Halloween murder mystery event. My fuksis really enjoyed it and it was also a relly fun way to get to know students from other guilds.
As one can deduce from my unemployment, I’m not great at writing applications. So please, if you have any questions, ask them here or through telegram @SanteriY .
9.10.2024
very busy tutoring session, Otaniemi
Santeri Ylitervo
ps.
For transparency, I’ve gotten the Aalto nomination for exchange in Taiwan for spring 2025. It’s not yet set in stone, but most likely I will be out of commission for irl-stuff during the spring. I have already discussed with a previous captain and Atte as well, and we’ve come to conclusion that it’s not a huge problem.
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Hi Santeri, great applications, but I have a few questions:
- You said that you would like more diverse events in English and named some examples. Do you have new ideas on such events (but don’t spoil anything :D) and are you willing to work with the different committees to workshop them? Which committees would you be most interested in working with?
- How do you feel about events with no primary language, such as the gaming committee’s game nights? They’ve had quite varying amounts of international students, but unfornately it always felt like the international and Finnish students were hanging out there seperately. Do you think an effort should be made to change this, and if so how would you go about it?
- Do you think there should be more interaction between the Bachelor’s fuksis and International/Master’s fuksis during fuksi events? If so, how would you go about it?
- Sitsis are a key part of Finnish student culture, they’re not necessarily for everyone. What other key parts of Finnish student culture do you think should be highlighted for international students who don’t prefer going to sitsis? Or do you think there should be more diverse kinds of sitsis for different people?
Good luck in the election process!!!
Hi Niklas, thanks for the encouragement and good luck to you as well!
As for your questions:
1.
Of course, I’d be glad to workshop ideas with the committees, although, I don’t have any specific preference of one over another. However, I’ve been kicking around an idea of a sort of winter Olympics that could be organized with sports committee, but you’ll have to wait and see.
2.
It’s a tough question that has probably been considered a long time. I believe that most Finns are perfectly capable of conversing in English so from that perspective I’d like to have game nights in English. However, I’m aware that some people are not comfortable conversing in English, and I don’t want to shut them out of events either. I definitely think there should be an effort to have international and Finnish student playing together; I just don’t have a specific solution (yet 
) .
3.
As in the previous point, I’d definitely like to see more mingling between Finnish and International fuksis but I haven’t figured out a way to make it happen.
4.
Best part of a culture is the people so I think the best way to show Finnish student culture for international students would be to have them hang around with Finnish students during the events. This requires events that encourage Finnish students to mingle with international students and vice versa.
Heyo, great to see you applying for International Captain! I’ve got just a few questions for ya! 
-
What challenges do you think international students face when joining Tietokilta or Aalto in general? How would you relieve them?
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Can you give an example of how you have handled a difficult situation involving cultural differences or language barriers? If you can’t think of one, how would you estimate your skills in handling them?
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The International Committee (KvTMK) and the guild’s Phuksi Committee (PHTMK) have scheduled a meeting at the same time. Which one are you going to and why? (question © many others before me)
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Are you a Campari enjoyer?
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What are your thoughts on current international song culture? What is your favorite English sitsi song (or songs!)?
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This might be the first election in a while without applications by international people (though hopefully not! there’s still plenty of time to apply and most positions don’t have any applicants yet). There are also very few international committee members. How would you encourage international people to apply to positions in the guild?
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What does KvTMK stand for?
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There’s a thousand-year-old tradition of taking international students on a trip - this year it was Nuuksio, and it has been Suomenlinna several times in the past, though sometimes it has been cancelled due to low attendance. Where would you take the fuksis next year, and how would you ensure that they are excited enough about the trip to actually attend? What kind of activities would follow after the trip?
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How would you encourage more people to apply to be an international ISO instead of a Finnish ISO? And even better, how would you encourage more international students to apply to be an ISO?
Best of luck and tsemppis in the election!
- Emilia
Thanks for the questions, and good luck to your campaign as well!
I think finding an apartment is the most stressful part of joining Aalto and the best way to alleviate this is by clearly informing how to apply for AYY and HOAS housing. Apart from that, just keeping people notified through telegram of events and how to join to clubs etc.
2.
I haven’t faced any difficult situations in terms of cultural differences but I think open mindedness goes a long way in these situations.
3.
It’s hard to say without a context and (hopefully) there are two of us so we don’t have to make the choice. However, if I had to choose and didn’t have any information in addition to that, I think I’d go to KvTMK because I see role of international captain being there for international students.
4.
Unfortunately, no.
5.
I think, there are enough songs for sitsis but I’d hope there were more variety in the songs sung in sauna. As a captain, I will memorize couple more good songs to teach in the sauna.
Paratrooper is my favourite in sauna due to it’s humorous lyrics and it being very easy to sing along even if you’ve never head it before.
6.
Maybe we could add a “commitee” checkpoint to some sauna evening where they could get flyers about different ways to be part of the guild and they could ask questions if somethings unclear.
7.
Nevahööd
8.
I think last year there was different trip to Suomenlinna organised by ESN so making sure it’s something they wouldn’t do otherwise is a good idea.
9.
It’s hard for me because I always wanted to be international ISO so I don’t get why people aren’t interested. Maybe we could have proper advertisement checkpoint on some event close to possible Wappu.
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Hey,
Nice to see that you’re applying for Master’s and International Captain!
Do you think international students face significant barriers to participating in events? How could we lower those barriers?
If you could pass on two things about teekkari culture to your fuksis, what would they be?
And what two things would you share with international students about Finland?
Master’s students typically have two years to be actively involved in the guild. How would you inspire them to join the organizational side, for example, by becoming a committee member?
What motivates you the most to take on a voluntary position in the guild?
How would you ensure that your motivation lasts throughout the 1.5-year term?
You have to spend 10 hours straight at the guild room. How would you spend your time?
Good luck with the election, and we’ll catch up in the interviews!
Hello and congrats for your new position!
There are some languge barriers. For example, on sitsis there are donkey briges (seques) in finnish that can be tedious to listen to if you can’t understand them (sometimes even if you can ). I think the biggest difference is that international students take their studies more seriously due to scolarships and such. To address this, there could be more relaxed events, like game nights, where people can come and go as needed, and alcohol isn’t involved so that no one has to worry about being hungover the next day.
Not taking things too seriously and to sing when you’ve got the chance
Rössypottu and the nature
I think there should be more information about the possibility. Maybe some “service desk” on a rantsu-event where they can get some “guide” and ask questions.
I’ve enjoyed hanging with international students so much and I want the next patch to have atleast as much fun as the previous. I’ll also hopefully have peer support from Atte
I’d just stare at the wall.
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