Hello!
New term for the SCI Bachelor’s Programme Committee has now been started with the first meeting of the year on the 20th of March. As usual, here you may find a brief summary on the topics discussed.
Decision items
There was one decision item in the meeting, namely a couple of adjustments to the following courses:
- CS-C2000 - Ihminen havaitsijana: change in the teaching period: III → III-IV
- CS-C4020 - Cognitive Psychology: exam to be included as one of the requirements in order to pass the course
These changes were approved as proposed, and next it is up to the SCI Academic Committee to make the final approval.
BSc level paper selection
As I wrote in my last post (https://fiirumi.mylly.fyysikkokilta.dev/t/sci-education-management-team-2-23/618), BSc level paper selection criteria are due to a revision. This time, DIA representative Jani Romanoff joined the meeting in order to inform the participants on how the project is proceeding. As a conclusion it can be said that as different universities and programmes have all their unique needs, it is not necessarily that straightforward to create a common policy for all of those. It should also be kept in mind that things are relatively well within DIA; the same paper selection criteria and entrance examination apply for all of the study places available in the DIA selection. This is something that should be taken for granted.
There was also a discussion on the importance of advanced mathematics (i.e., “pitkä matematiikka”) for engineering students; a public debate has raised some concerns whether the weight of advanced mathematics in the paper selection is too big relative to mother tongue, for example, but the consensus in this meeting seemed to be that the current weight is justified and should not be changed. Also the weight of advanced mathematics should be big enough relative to basic mathematics (i.e., “lyhyt matematiikka”) According the current draft, available at: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/valintahanke/files/2023/03/Todistusvalinnan-pisteytysluonnos.pdf, the weight of advanced mathematics relative to mother tongue has been decreased. On the other hand, advanced mathematics has been set as a prerequisite (as it has been so far). The draft is open for comments until 21.4.2023.
Other issues
- Study credit analysis of the freshmen: Study progress of the freshmen in last autumn (2022) in terms of study credits was analyzed and compared to similar statistics from autumn 2021. All in all it can be said that the study progress has been somewhat identical both in autumn 2022 and 2021. This holds for all SCI majors.
- Exchange application statistics: In total 172 applicants from SCI were accepted into an exchange programme in this application cycle. This is the greatest number among all the engineering schools in Aalto. Singapore University of Technology and Design was the most popular university with 11 applicants.
- Biomedical engineering: The programme was now represented for this Committee. A responsible teacher for the programme is still missing. The programme aims to start discussions with student representatives in the near future.
- AllWell questionnaire: Only 47,6% of BSc students and 34,9% of MSc students in SCI answered the questionnaire. It was recognized that these are relatively low numbers. The question of how to actually improve these numbers was left as a future issue. Students will be informed on the results of the questionnaire in the next newsletter for students in March-April.
- SCI-A0000 - Johdatus opiskeluun: Currently, the course takes almost the whole year to complete, which is a bit impractical. Ways to improve this course are now under consideration. One proposal is to split the course into two, so that at least one of these two courses could be completed at own pace.
That is wrap for this time, thanks for reading the summary!
Br, Tommi