Can't let go of Tallinn University
Hello, my name is Irina and I am a Tallinn University alumna. I came to Estonia to study. There is a beautiful love-story behind it but I will leave the story out this time. My homeland is Russia and my hometown is Moscow where I graduated from a Philological Department with my first MA.
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Irina is also our student ambassador. Photo by Aleksei Volkov.[/caption]
So, I already knew what my cup of tea was and looked through different MA programmes in humanities (tip 1: always know what your interests are before choosing your programme). I chose Comparative Literature and Cultural Semiotics at Tallinn University. This programme doesn’t exist anymore but I see it as an ancestor to another one which you can enter and for me it sounds even more exciting – MA. As well as this one, my studies were not about classic humanities approach: it was a great mixture of interdisciplinary subjects including social sciences as well. Actually, I would say that interdisciplinarity is one of the strongest sides of the university – you are never stuck in one discipline but always work on blurring the borders between different branches of science. And variability of the programme serves this goal as well. Did you know that you are the one who decides what to study? There is a core of obligatory subjects, of course, but for the rest you have a lot of options to choose from. I took different language courses, for example, Chinese, French and Estonian as a part of my ‘free’ subjects but it could be anything (here comes tip 2: use this possibility to study things you have never studied in your life before).
Speaking about subjects to choose, I had a situation when I wanted to take one translation course but it was in Estonian. I talked to the professor and she made a personal self-study plan for me, told where to find the texts in English and at the end of the semester, I passed the exam. This is a very illustrating example that the university is for the students. So, use all the possibilities at the university, including engaging yourself to the social life, and much more (tip 3 is here for you: take everything you can – go to the university’s orchestra if you know how to play something, join the or visit the ).
Tallinn University is an open university – you can easily come into and float from one building to another looking for inspiration and positive energy. Everybody can come inside and explore the university or take a couple of courses and join the degree students during their classes. I graduated almost a year ago but I can't let go of Tallinn University – I come back, participate in different events, study at the library, visit our cafe from time to time, volunteer here and I am actually dreaming of continuing my studies on the .
Text by Irina Ranneva (Comparative Literature and Cultural Semiotics MA alumna).
Irina is also our student ambassador. Photo by Aleksei Volkov.[/caption]
So, I already knew what my cup of tea was and looked through different MA programmes in humanities (tip 1: always know what your interests are before choosing your programme). I chose Comparative Literature and Cultural Semiotics at Tallinn University. This programme doesn’t exist anymore but I see it as an ancestor to another one which you can enter and for me it sounds even more exciting – MA. As well as this one, my studies were not about classic humanities approach: it was a great mixture of interdisciplinary subjects including social sciences as well. Actually, I would say that interdisciplinarity is one of the strongest sides of the university – you are never stuck in one discipline but always work on blurring the borders between different branches of science. And variability of the programme serves this goal as well. Did you know that you are the one who decides what to study? There is a core of obligatory subjects, of course, but for the rest you have a lot of options to choose from. I took different language courses, for example, Chinese, French and Estonian as a part of my ‘free’ subjects but it could be anything (here comes tip 2: use this possibility to study things you have never studied in your life before).
Speaking about subjects to choose, I had a situation when I wanted to take one translation course but it was in Estonian. I talked to the professor and she made a personal self-study plan for me, told where to find the texts in English and at the end of the semester, I passed the exam. This is a very illustrating example that the university is for the students. So, use all the possibilities at the university, including engaging yourself to the social life, and much more (tip 3 is here for you: take everything you can – go to the university’s orchestra if you know how to play something, join the or visit the ).
Tallinn University is an open university – you can easily come into and float from one building to another looking for inspiration and positive energy. Everybody can come inside and explore the university or take a couple of courses and join the degree students during their classes. I graduated almost a year ago but I can't let go of Tallinn University – I come back, participate in different events, study at the library, visit our cafe from time to time, volunteer here and I am actually dreaming of continuing my studies on the .
Text by Irina Ranneva (Comparative Literature and Cultural Semiotics MA alumna).
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