Teaching in the autumn term and the orientation of new students will start at the end of August
JYU advances the orientation of new students and the start of the term to provide more time for orientating and studying in the autumn term than in 2019.
“If teaching in full capacity is started near mid-September, in some cases the autumn term’s study time may be too short,” says Marja-Leena Laakso, the vice rector responsible for education. “The purpose of an earlier start is to provide more time for teaching and studying so that the term schedule would not be too tight.”
In autumn 2019, the orientation period for the first-year students was only three days and it was found too short. The orientation is important for the forming of groups and making the university familiar to new students. Therefore, in the future the orientation period will be one week. This ensures that students will have more time to get to know how the university works before the start of actual studies.
One-week orientation also affects the start of other students’ term because teaching will start right after the orientation week.
Vice Rector Laakso made the decision on the start schedule after hearing the Education Council. The Education Council is an expert body of university education and part of the education management system. The Student Union (JYY) represents students in the council, and the change has been discussed with JYY in the meetings of late 2019.
The decision includes the next three academic years to ensure continuity and uniformity during the curriculum period. In 2021, the orientation will start on 23 August and teaching on 30 August. In 2022, the orientation will start on 22 August and teaching on 29 August. After the change, the start of teaching is more in line with other higher education institutions, for example, JAMK University of Applied Sciences that is our EduFutura partner institution.
The advancing of the start of teaching has raised worries, for example, because of overlapping with summer jobs. Also issues related to getting an apartment and sufficiently rest or vacation may come up.
A project group has been established, as a collaboration of the Student Union and Student and Academic Services, to explore the challenges caused by advancing the start of the academic year and to find responsible parties that will start to look for solutions. The purpose is to learn from the good practices of universities that have prior experience about starting the orientation and studies at the end of August.
“I believe that with collaboration we can lighten the study workload in autumn and reserve sufficiently long time for the important orientation of new students,” says Laakso.
More information
Director of Student and Academic Services Mari Ikonen, firstname.lastname@jyu.fi