INF greetings, winter 2022
Time for the formal informal greetings from the INF programme. First time in English, as you can see :) As I’m writing this I’ve forgotten most of the details from last Fall (see below about my sabbatical), so I beg your pardon as I miss something critical.
The Fall semester had nice rays of hope about the pandemic as some courses were held in the old way, i.e., face-to-face in the classroom. Also, our 1st year BSc students had an orientation week in a physical university, although most of the courses were online after all. Perhaps the best ray of hope was that the Athene guild was able to host the annual “Vujut” physically in November!
Well-being
Here at the programme level we’ve kept a sharp eye on well-being, and last Fall’s COOs Marianna Malkamäki and Nic Colb did some heavy lifting in keeping the COO channels open, and importantly, the bi-weekly well-being survey up and running. Although the number of participants in the survey was not huge, it gave us a rich and valuable channel to listen to people and to better understand the kind of issues and thoughts our students have. Nic also made a good job in summarising the topics so that we then could open a dialog (in TG) with everyone.
In long-term well-being we made the most of “Infolaisen polku” tool/page (i.e., a student written guidebook on thoughts, feelings etc. typical during the first 3 yrs of the BSc). The tool is very valuable in putting the focus on the students’ experiences and path (in contrast with having solely a university and faculty p.o.v.).
I really encourage everyone to have a look, because it tackles so many issues at once: practical information, psychological support, seeing that “everyone has similar feelings” etc. Let’s hope we can get a v.2 done next Fall.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to “Infolaisen polku”, and special thanks to Nestori Lautanala and Adeola Ikuesan who finalised the web pages & content for publication!
Programme Input = high schoolers
During the summer we had two major projects. The first was “Summer of Lukiot”, a project lead by Irpo Niemenmaa in which we studied how Finnish high school students and teachers think about studies after high school. It confirmed our suspicions that the current final exam (yo-kirjoitukset) model has fundamental problems when it comes to “letting young people find and explore their interests”. In other words, high schoolers are practically forced to choose their university studies almost the first year of “lukio” and without a clear understanding of the options and their meanings.
Read the full report here (in Finnish). Kudos to the whole team behind the work: Kiri Huhtanen, Valtteri Ingervo, Katri Mäki-Kullas, Nestori Lautanala, and Irpo Niemenmaa.
Programme Output = employment after MSc
On the output part, Valtteri Ingervo took Inkeri Rouvinen’s work from 2019 and re-did the study on where do our alumni end up and what they think about their work in relation to their studies. Needless to say, this is fundamental work in understanding where do INF graduates end up working and how to take that into account during the studies.
The numbers are amazing (again): 97,4% of graduates (who answered the survey) are employed, 97,5% say that their studies support their work, and 93,4% were employed when graduated (MSc degree). Read more here (in Finnish). Make sure to high-five Valtteri Ingervo for a job well done!
Numbers + Story
They say that you need to have two things in order to convince others: rational numbers + an inspiring story. In addition to polishing our web pages the CMO of our programme Adeola Ikuesan helped us to crystallise the numbers and the story — mainly for prospective high school students but also for anyone trying to get a grasp on what INF is about.
The numbers we put in the front are:
- Our attractiveness: 140% growth in applicants in 5 yrs.
- A good place to study: 4.2/5.0 grade from our students to the programme.
- Guaranteed employment: 97,4% were employed when they graduated as MSc.
And the story we put together as follows (here in English, on our website in Finnish):
…and that’s not all, folks!
Few other things happened during the Fall that are definitely worth mentioning:
Serious Feedback
We held our compulsory communications course for 1st year students for the first time. The course didn’t go as expected, and I won’t go into the details here. However, one thing happened that is extremely valuable: the students, together with the guild, brought the problems and issues into the front in a clear and stern yet open and constructive way. This shows us all that something important is working: critical feedback to the programme, openness for a dialogue, and students voicing their concerns. From my perspective it makes changing things and correcting mistakes so much more meaningful because I can count on students raising flags and holding onto their rights. Stuff happens in life as well as in studies and in programmes, and it is how we react that matters. Thanks for the reaction!
Info’s own Exec. in Residence
Another important thing worth mentioning was that Hanno Nevanlinna joined our programme as an Executive in Residence (an official Aalto title, yes). Hanno is a unique world-class addition of expertise when it comes to creating organisation cultures and successful businesses that have a solid base in people’s well-being and positive contribution to society. He works roughly a half-a-day per week, and has taken charge of re-designing our Academic Advising process together with Nic Colb. Also, our 1st year students have already met Hanno, students of Societal Design Project got to know him, and some of you will hear him in the “Käyttis” course this winter. Welcome again, Hanno!
Mission Accomplished: Sosiaalisen Median Ilmiöt
The end of 2021 marked also the end of the online course Sosiaalisen Median Ilmiöt (Social Media Phenomena). It had started as an experiment to share lecture videos publicly and grew into a proper online course with university study credits. In the end there were 18 000 visits and 1500 people who passed the course in the 16 months it was up and running. Not bad for an experiment!
This is all thanks to the amazing people who built the course and made it a success, especially the product managers who designed, validated, operated, fixed bugs, ran the analytics, marketed and talked to stakeholders: Jani Kaitosalmi, Kiri Huhtanen, and Julia Korhonen!
In August 2022 we start planning what to do with the course, but at the moment it is on hold as there is no one in Aalto to upkeep the course.
Curriculum version 2022–24
We also pushed through a new curriculum for both INF BSc and MSc. In the BSc we built a more solid base on scientific thinking and methodology (a method course for 1st year students), and introduced more variety in the optional major courses (e.g., statistical inference, social psychology). Most of the changes in the BSc are inside the courses rather than the courses themselves.
In the MSc we had bigger changes. The track Digital and Social Media was dropped but from the ashes we created a new one: Digital Ethics, Society and Policy which is a new start in creating more critical and societal focus into our portfolio. Also, the Business & Organisation Design was nicely re-factored by Jukka Luoma to better fit the feedback from students.
No changes were made to the other two tracks, also the compulsory courses for everyone remained the same but we aim to make changes inside some of the courses based on feedback.
And again: many thanks for the feedback and suggestions, and especially to Nestori Lautanala, Marianna Malkamäki, and all my hired muscle (i.e., the assistants, summer workers etc) in 2021 for contributing to the new curriculum.
Taking a break
Oh, these letters get so long … I probably forgot to mention something critical. Sorry, my bad. Final words about my leave of absence.
Starting January 1st I’m working 20% at Aalto (i.e., one day a week) all the way till summer. I’ll be back 100% on August 1st, the final year of this crowd-funded professorship :) During my leave, all the programme director responsibilities are handled by prof. Niina Nurmi (check out the fantastic HS article about her research).
…and nope, I’m not taking on another job or writing a book. Although I’m holding on to my executive trainings (gotta get money to feed the kids, eh) I’m pretty much a stay-home-dad/husband for the half-a-year. Oh, and I’m teaching Facilitating Change with Jari Ylitalo in period V.
My personal thanks to all of you amazing students for making this job meaningful and fun. And thanks for making the whole programme feel more of a community and a shared effort. Just like any person in remote working, we professors, teachers, and personnel need a feeling of “being together” to get through the online crap and remoteness fatigue.
Take care!
Risto
