Thankfully, technology has not been much of an issue during my first few weeks studying here in Helsinki, Finland. Despite what you may believe, Finland is much more than snow, forests, and little log cabins. The country is actually quite technologically advanced, being the home to tech companies like the cell giant Nokia and Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds. And with Helsinki being the capital city, it has all the technological bells and whistles I’ve been spoiled with back in Boston.
Free, public Wi-Fi is abundant throughout the city, in cafes, shopping centers, parks, etc. I actually think the public Wi-Fi network in Helsinki is much better than what Boston has to offer! This was quite a relief, because without the access to Wi-Fi, I may have had a melt down upon arrival. No, not because I couldn’t update my Facebook status or post selfie from the airport, but because the phone I had planned on using wasn’t compatible with my Finnish SIM card. Access to Wi-Fi allowed to me easily still contact home and get some calming advice from my family before I found a store that sold a “cheap” (nothing is cheap in Finland…) smartphone that I could use for the next four months. Thankfully, I now have fully operational phone, with a basic package of talk, text, and data so staying in contact with home is quite easy (and I can of course post to Facebook and upload those selfies to Instagram!).
Technology at the university is quite impressive as well. There is plenty of access to computers and printers with a similar printing system to what we have at Northeastern. Classes are all equipped with various projectors, and most have new Smartboards. One really cool tech feature in most buildings is an interactive building map, that not only shows you the locations of each room, but updates daily with the class and meeting schedule for each room.
My one “major” clash with technology so far has come at the gym. The gym is very well equipped and actually has a really cool key system that allows you to swipe into the gym, as well as lock and unlock a locker with a tap of your key. And when you inevitably forget which locker you chose, you can tap your key to a computer and it will tell you which locker number you chose! While the key system is quite cool, my one gripe with the gym has been the treadmill. They have great, new treadmills, but they count in kilometers and kilometers per hour! That extra little bit of mental math to convert to my usual miles and miles per hour is sometimes tough when you’re huffing and puffing on a treadmill run! With all the other technological bells and whistles around though, I’m happy to report that having to mentally convert to the metric system has been my biggest struggle.
