TRAVEL REPORT

UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE

SPRING 2015

K90516

Preparing for the exchange

In the late March after been nominated for an exchange to Facultad de Economía y Negocios

(FEN) in Universidad de Chile, I received an acceptance letter from the Incoming Student

Exchange Coordinator, Kaia, with information of the application procedure needed to

complete before getting the final acceptance. This was due to September if I remember right

and included online application together with transmitted transcript of records, copy of

passport and nomination letter. Mail was enough for the attachments so no paper versions

needed to be sent what so ever. In general Kaia was really active before, during and after the

exchange so everything is really easy for the new exchange student. What it comes to visa, U

de Chile allows exchange students to study with a mere tourist visa so no student visa is

required. You will get some benefits from the student visa, like student discount in public

transportation but due to its high price (400€ or so – did not ever really look for the actual

price…) I decided not to get it. You just need to hop outside of Chile after 3 months to renew

your visa – perhaps plan a small trip somewhere?

In the mail informing my acceptance for U de Chile I got information of the important dates

before the semester:

“The important dates for the beginning of the semester have been established

and are as follows:

March 1st & 2nd -- Suggested Arrival Dates

March 3rd -- Mandatory International Student Orientation

March 5th -- First Day of Classes”

I left for Chile in the late January. My plan was to make a trip to south of Chile in the summer

seasons (when it is not too chilly out there) and while doing it, improve my Spanish before the

semester. From the course catalogue, I had picked up few courses in Spanish and few in

English and in the first week of school after getting to know the courses a bit I dropped two

out. The courses were selected online in December. Kaia will surely inform of this. The

selection process went so and so: the system failed many times and all together the process

took very long, so dedicate some time for this. You should not be too worried about this

though: FEN allows you to make changes for these selections in the first weeks of the

semester. Yet, Kaia is super and will get you into the courses you want – if you meet the

academic requirements, which you will.

Studies

The first semester is from March to July and second semester is from July to December.

There is always a two-week mid-term period in the middle of the semester and a few-week

examination period in the end.

FEN did not offer courses in English on the graduate level. However, Aalto accepts the

undergraduate courses from the fourth and fifth years, having courses in English too. I had

two courses in Spanish and two in English, all from undergraduate level. The graduate

courses were later in the afternoon with MBA students and did not seem that interesting for

me. In general, the graduate courses did not seem to have heavier workload than the ones in

undergraduate level, quite the opposite. For experiencing the local life at FEN, I recommend

taking some courses in Spanish: this way I got to know lots of locals and spent most of my

school days outside the exchange group.

I succeed to select four probably the most demanding courses in the undergraduate level so I

had to actually study during my semester. Yet, most of the courses require 80% attendance

so travelling during the semester can be quite tricky. None of my courses required attendance

per se but had frequently small tests and examinations that affected the grade and these tests

were not always informed more than few days before. In general FEN suggest the exchange

students to have their trips before or after the exchange. Below you have the holiday days of

my semester:

Friday, 3rd April - Viernes Santo (Good Friday)

Friday, 1st May - Día Nacional del Trabajado (Labor Day)

Thursday, 21st May - Día de las Glorias Navales (Navy Day)

Monday, 29th June - San Pedro y San Pablo (Saint Peter and Saint Paul)

Studying in FEN differs quite a bit from studying in Aalto. Both have quite a large workload

(well in Aalto you need to work slightly more) but differ in other ways. In short you could say

that FEN is more school like: your final grade correlates more to your stamina to do all the

small handovers and tests than your new abilities to solve problems or your general

understanding of the subject. There is not so much room for creativity but in stead you

actually have to do precisely like the professors want. The students were really hard workers

and spent most of their time – beside travelling to the UNI far away from their homes in the

rich bubble area – studying, assisting in courses or in extra curriculum activities. The courses

were evaluated from 1 to 7, seven being excellent and one really bad. You needed a 4 to

pass. Most of the local students were actually satisfied with 4. Next I will provide you some

information of the courses I completed.

Finanzas 2/3 – 6 ECTs (English)

A course about the wonderful world of corporate finance, held in English by a hectic Spanish

professor. I had not studied finance in five years before taking this course and could say that

my knowhow from the field had got bit rusty. Hence it was good to remind me from the basics

learned in the introduction to finance course and yet, learn this corporate stuff too. What it

comes to workload, the course was not that demanding. Still the course was one of the

hardest courses to pass due to the difficulty of the subject and the professor’s quite tricky

exams. Hence you needed to self-study the material. The course was ok. Sometimes the

professor got lost in the depths of his monologue while he could have explained the topic way

easier. For me the things were quite easy to understand but to memorize all that amount of

formulas and stuff for the exams was harder of a task.

Desarollo de Sistemas Informaticas – 6 ECTs (English)

Lousiest course I took. Do not take it. The course was held in English by a professor who tried

to be something he was not. Honestly, I did not like his teaching methods, persona or

knowledge. He tried to be sly even though he did not have any reason for being. Only thing I

liked in the course was the final exam that was only 1h long. In general, the course was about

information systems development concentrating on the architecture and design part of the

process. The course consisted of boring lectures, small exams, mid-term and a project for a

client with a presentation and a prototype. The project could have been interesting but it was

not. Compared to projects we do in Aalto this seemed like a joke. Still, loyal to local business

habits, things were always very formal with the client, especially during final presentations.

Database and Business Intelligence Applications – 6 ECTs (Spanish)

This course is a good example of learning just for the sake of learning. In general the course

was good and the professor was young, energetic and knew his stuff. The only thing was that

when you find yourself memorizing Excel shortcuts for the next class’s small test you wonder

why the hell are you in the university for? The first part of the course covered database design

using Access and the second part was about data manipulation in Excel. We had plenty of

small tests (weekly), together with a larger individual project and a mid-term and a final exam.

Things were not the easiest in the course and the phase was rapid. Well, the things were not

hard either, but when you have to follow a professor talking in his strong Chilean accent

moving from step to step so fast that it required 100% concentration from the local students

too in order to accomplish the things without loosing it, things got hard. Basically, I had to

make friends with everybody happening to sit next to me in order to get their aid to stay on the

tracks during the classes. Learned quite a lot in this course.

Business Intelligence and Analytics – 6 ECTs (Spanish)

Easiest course I had. The topic was really interesting, basically data mining, and we had

couple of very interesting projects too. The professor new his stuff but he was not the greatest

spokesman and sometimes lost the interest of the class. The course did not have exams but

instead few handovers in small groups and two larger projects in bigger groups. The projects

were really challenging (and quite frustrating) and you could have realized yourselves as a

group nicely. My group had as much as 6 students, which made the work slightly hard when

you talk about a project where you basically have to play with a large set of data, find

something interesting and create the rest of the project around it. Handling this as a group

was really hard. I had my difficulties to contribute in Spanish too. While the topic was quite

hard, passing the course was not. This was due to lack of small tests and examinations like

the other courses had.

Hobbies

Considering extra curriculum activities, FEN offered loads! You can do all kind of artsy,

sportsy or any kind of hobbies from circus to painting. In the campus area you have good-

sized basketball and football courts, free gym, climbing wall and so on. FEN offers courses on

climbing, dancing, basketball, football, gymnastic, painting…Students were actually

demanded to take some sports courses and FEN offered credits for these. I did not do any

sports courses with credits but played for the FEN’s basketball team. We had two practices

and two games a week. It was great fun and a good way to get to know bunch of locals. We

had barbeque parties (asados – very common in Chile) with the team and great adventures in

the night times finding our ways back from the opponent’s court in the other side of the city.

Combining the responsibility for the team as a, at least somewhat, healthy sportsman

together with the exchange life was bit hard though.

Free time and other information

What it comes to housing, DO NOT go to FENTastic, a housing option offered by FEN – it is

just a rip off. You will pay double the price for rent. I had an old friend of mine living in

Santiago so I just stayed in his apartment for the first two weeks looking for a flat. You can

find loads of options with decent prices from compartodepto where I found mine. I lived in a

bohemian neighbourhood of Yungay in a family house. The parents of the family were

designers/artists and had a project up north so I was living with the daughter of the family and

her boyfriend and their two cats (and occasionally with their lovely grandma). The family was

nice, house was amazing and the area of Yungay one of the only areas I actually liked in

Santiago. For my room I paid about 250€ a month including internet, water, gas, everything.

The rent was reasonable but otherwise Chile was not cheap. Considering all the expenses I

think that for me living in Santiago was more expensive than in Helsinki. Depends what do

you do though. Wine, cheaper. Eating out, cheaper (much thanks to lower price of the wine

bottle). Avocados, cheaper. Public transportation, more expensive (about 1€ a ride – there

was no monthly card). Going out to good night clubs, more expensive. Going out to bad

nightclubs, cheaper. Going out to underground parties, the same. During my stay euro sank

too making the living more expensive. For a normal citizen, yes, Santiago is cheaper but for

us students, with plenty of student discounts here in Helsinki, Santiago can be surprisingly

expensive.

Getting to know Chileans was neither easy nor especially challenging. At UNI, for example, I

had plenty of local friends I could chitchat during the school days but with whom I did not

spend particularly too much time outside the school. I did not mind that. Many of the kids in

school were from the richer nice areas and they did not particularly spend time in my

neighbourhood or in the areas I liked to hang around. Basically they were too afraid to spend

time there. Most of my local better friends I got to know outside the school; during my travels

or in nightlife or wherever. However, Santiago is not a city where you could go alone to a bar,

enjoy a beer in your solitude and perhaps get to know the people around you – it just is not

part of the culture. What the people from FEN liked to do is to have barbeques, birthday

parties, weddings and such with the friends they have known since they were kids. Many

Chileans do their school from elementary school to high school in the same facility and spend

lots of time with this specific group. Santiago is a big city though so I bet you can find your

group of people there – at least I found mine.

As a city, I have to admit, Santiago is not my favourite. This is a lot due to it being so big. With

the size comes the distances and with the tense population together with the mountains

surrounding the city and blocking the circulation of air comes the pollution. During my stay

Chile declared first time in 20 years an emergency state for Santiago due to all the pollution in

the air. During the emergency state it was prohibited to have e.g. sports lessons outside (we

could not have basketball practices) and city recommended people to avoid spending time

outside. Before the emergency state was declared I could sense something being wrong

when I started to feel dizzy after my everyday 30 min biking trips to school. Other reason for

my dislike for the city is the music. Chileans love their reggaeton. I don’t. Chile has nice

tradition in folklore music though and you can find some decent Latin jazz too so you are not

doomed. There are also some pretty good underground techno and house parties. But in

general the music scene is quite bad. Frankly, I did not get too much of the Latin kicks in

Chile. Third reason for me not loving the city is that you really cannot have nice walks there.

The city is not made for that. I missed my walks. Still, I left small piece of my heart in Yungay

and during my stay I wished I could have spend most of my time in that area, Yungay and

Brasil. Other nice areas are Barrio Italia (bit posh but nice) and Lastarria (really centric, close

to FEN).

While you need to escape Santiago regularly, it is not precisely a bad thing. For travelling,

Chile is a-mazing, at least its nature is something beyond beautiful. You can see all the

varieties of nature in Chile and I recommend you to take everything out of that! Particularly

the south is marvellous. In Patagonia you can really sense being far away from home. I did

not have a chance to go to north but heard many good things about it, especially from the

magical Atacama dessert. Surf in Chile is one of the best in the world and from Santiago you

can get to world-class spots in 2,5h (e.g. Punta de Lobos, Pichilemu). The only thing is that

travelling is not too cheap and the distances are big – you will get use to sitting long times in a

bus. Still, it is totally worth it. Go and enjoy some of that neature!

Chileans are nice people and you will find their kindness and helpfulness admirable. Yet for a

South American country, Chile is relatively safe too. Most of the incidents occur in Santiago or

Valparaiso (the second biggest city – a lovely city!). I saw few bit scarier incidents and heard

of few bad ones but in general Chile is safe and I would not worry too much about it. Common

sense is good to own. In Chile, universities, even the public ones, are really expensive. Most

of the local more educated kids have been frightened whole their life about the dangers of the

lower class. Do not believe straight everything what these people are saying about the

dangers – they live in their big bubbles and really do not have any idea of their fellow

Chileans. Still, as I said, common sense is good to have. My neighbour was for example

stabbed to death in his bedroom during my last week. Because the rich and poor are

completely separated it might be dangerous to hang around with the people from different

background – they might see you as posh as their fellow rich people in the society. Gringo

you will be for sure. Get used to it.

In order to understand the society more, get to know to Chile’s miserable history and the

terrors of Augusto Pinochet. The topic divides the people of Chile and is not that talked of a

subject. Well in my barrio of Yungay, area of protest songs and more rebellious movement,

people were talking and singing about him all the time. There are also lots of people who find

Pinochet being the reason why Chile is what it is today: one of the most advantaged and

stable economies in South America. It is partly true, yes, but with what a price? Learn about

the topic before going to Chile; it gives perspective.

Final Comments

Chile is an amazing country; Santiago is not just my favourite city. Oh, and I forgot to mention

that the language can be quite tricky to get, so I will mention it here: Chilean way to speak

Spanish is really hard to understand!