Student life

As an international undergraduate student studying at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), I would say that throughout my period of study here I have been continuously challenged to grow outside of my comfort zone. My two years spent at HKU so far have been fruitful.

My name is Heidi Flinkman and I’m a third-year bachelor’s student in informatics at the University of Luxembourg. I come from Finland and originally arrived in Luxembourg as an incoming exchange student from a Finnish university. As my exchange period came towards its end, I made the decision to transfer my studies and complete my degree in Luxembourg. I had really enjoyed my exchange experience and the university offered courses in business intelligence and banking information technologies that were interesting to me.

What do we want? “A simpler system with students at the centre.”

And how are we going to achieve this? “Improve teaching quality, open up the higher education sector and drive value for money.”

When you join university, your acceptance usually depends on whether you have or haven’t met your entry requirements . The admission-tutors will most probably not take into account the many other ways you are suited to or can positively contribute to your degree course. How can they? Unless you are applying for a master’s or a PhD degree at the same university at which you completed your bachelor’s, they won’t know you. Similarly, they won’t be aware of your full potential.

University is hard. You are essentially thrown into the deep end of life and expected to swim. From my personal experience, high school won’t prepare you for life at university, but maybe this blog will help. Today, I present to you four things you need to do in order to survive at university.

I am extremely fortunate to be studying not only in the Netherlands, but at Leiden University. Why would I call this fortunate, you may ask? I previously studied at St Andrews in Scotland and I would also say that I was lucky to have done that as well. But things have changed in the UK as we all know. My bachelors programme was around £1,800 a year. At that price, the level of education was fantastic, and I am still very glad I got the opportunity to study there.

Even though I have a huge imagination, what I am going to write is really something unexpected. 

Four things are recurring in this story: nutella, parmesan, my granddad’s backpack and a moka. 

When I picked my A-Levels my subjects ranged from what might get me into an accounting career, a languages career, a politics, or law career. I have always liked the idea of a diverse career path, or so I believed. I kept my options open because I didn’t know what I wanted, not because I had enjoyed the variety in the first place.  When I applied for a law degree I based my decision on nothing other than the highest grades I had achieved. My achievement had shown me what I would be best at. Which is great, isn’t it?

How often do you consider the possibility that you could be wrong about your most cherished beliefs? How much time have you spent thinking through arguments you deeply disagree with? How often do you seek to engage intellectually with those who hold opposing views?

I raise these questions because I value intellectual exchange and would like to see it flourish, not flounder, in the face of heated disagreement.

When you start university and are warned about mental health issues, you assume that the warnings and reminders of support are for other people. The ones who already have mental health issues, and the types of people we might assume are already at risk. It’s not true. Mental health at university exists in a whole different realm to mental health anywhere else and it’s time that that is acknowledged. It doesn’t play by the rules everyone seems to have constructed.