Tomorrow I will visit the facilities of HAMK University of Applied Sciences in Hämeenlinna, Finland, which marks as a mile stone in my path of life long learning experience.
I started applying for getting accepted to a University of Applied Sciences that would have the Professional Teachers Education program in 2008. Starting from then, the primary option school in which the application was sent, was Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in Pasila, Helsinki, Finland. Each time I also targeted another similar school as a secondary option.
There were and are several different options of how to conduct the studying. Some of them require constant presence at the school, while some just few times when most of the studies are done online. I always tried to get in to the online based study group.
In 2011 I was accepted to JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä, but after considering the financical effect, I finally decided to decline for it. It would have required to visit the school premises about ten times, each time for few days.
In 2012 I missed the application dead line by one day, so that is the only year from 2008 in which I did not applied. Next year I made sure that I would remember to apply on time, and when the time came in Janury, did it during the first week.
Finally when the results for 2013 application came in April, the total score was a bit low, thus I called the contact number. It turned out that one of my degrees was not taken into account, hence the score was increased by few points. Having that fixed, I was accepted to the school which was my secondary option, namely HAMK University of Applied Sciences in Hämeenlinna.
Now one and half years later I am getting the certificate for being a Professional Teacher.
The points for passing and my scores for each year the I had applied:
- 2008, my score: 13, HAMK: 16, TAMK: 20
- 2009, my score: 14, Haaga-Helia: 26, TAMK: 23
- 2010, my score: 22, Haaga-Helia: 27, Secondary: 22
- 2011 (points not available), Haaga-Helia, JAMK
- 2013, my score: 20 (initially), Haaga-Helia: 25, HAMK: 20
As a side note, every time the points calculated by the web application form were much higher than the final score calculated by the application office in the school that was the primary option.