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New students

Hello new student and welcome to LUT University! On these pages you will find information about activities that you should do before starting your studies, about freshman weeks and about the studies themselves. See you in the fall!

Table of Contents

Before studies

Hello new student. You are entering the most memorable time in your life. For this, we have put together an information pack for you, which you should check out before starting your studies. Once you arrive LUT, your tutor, guilds and the student union will take care of everything else. Welcome! 

You can get to know your new campus beforehand either in Lappeenranta or in Lahti. Infromation about campus accessibility can also be found from eLut

First you need to receive a place to study. Follow the instructions given to you in the email! In case you have Finnish identity coden, it is most conveniently done electronically through the Opintopolku.fi service.

Registrations must be made before the date informed to you when you received a study place. So please note that you will need to accept a place even if you do not start your studies in the fall of 2023. In that case, you will only register as absent. However, that is only possible in certain situations. 

Everything you need to know about starting your studies in the university, is available on eLUT.

Upon registration, you must pay the student union membership fee. The fee is mandatory for all students completing the degree and is paid annually. To be able to study at university, you must pay this fee.

The amount of the fee for the academic year 2022-2023 is 74 euros or 42 euros for autumn semester and 42 euros for spring semester. The fee goes to the Student Union and the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL).

In connection with the membership fee, it is possible to pay a voluntary support fee to Lappeenranta Mental Health Association, which is 5 euros.

Please, give the Student Union permission to handle your information in SISU. Only by giving your permission to us, you can fully use our services.

University of applied sciences and university students entitled to the Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS) services will pay a healthcare fee to Kela. Healthcare fee must be paid for each semester. Kela will not send a bill, you must pay it initiatively in order to avoid reminder and late-payment fee. It can be paid via Kela’s e-services or a bank transfer. 

More information about the healthcare fee and who needs to pay it, can be found from Kela

As soon as possible after the decision to accept the place, it is worth applying for housing. 

In Lahti, there is Lahden Talot, who provides a large selection of student apartments. You can find out more and apply for apartment in www.lahdentalot.fi/?lang=en

In Lappeenranta the Lappeenranta Student Housing Foundation (LOAS) offers affordable student housing. Approximately 3,000 students live in the apartments of the LOAS every year and it is a good place to start apartment hunting. 

Find out more and apply housing: www.loas.fi/en

However, due to the high demand, it is worth looking for apartments elsewhere as well. You can also find apartments on Lappeenranta’s housing services (https://www.aspakoti.fi/in-english) and on the private market. 

New student and homeless in Lappeenranta? Don’t worry! You can register for temporary accommodation organized by LTKY and LOAS. Temporary accommodation is intended for those students of LUT, LAB and Sampo who are in the LOAS housing queue, but have not yet received a housing offer or whose lease agreement starts later after the first studies.

Temporary accommodation is usually open from August to Octer. Accommodation is arranged in LOAS club rooms, men and women separately. For temporary accommodation, a mattress is provided, bed linen and linen must be provided by the occupant. All club rooms have showers, a small kitchen and the possibility to wash clothes at least once a week. Unfortunately, locked lockers are not available at the locations.

Temporary housing is open 16.8.-31.10. The rent for temporary accommodation is € 5 per day (or for the day) between 16 August and 30 September and € 8 per day (or for the day) between 1 and 31 October. The minimum rent is € 20 for accommodation shorter than four days. The rent will be paid upon return of the key. A lost key will be charged for re-serialization of locks up to € 500. If you are offered a LOAS apartment, your right to live in temporary accommodation will end when your tenancy begins.

Link to register for temporary accommodation.

Further information and answers to questions can be provided by LTKY’s housing secretary by e-mail [email protected].

To get the most out of your student benefits, you may want to obtain a student card. It allows you to eat in the student canteens on campus, travel on VR’s trains and Matkahuolto’s buses cheaply, and borrow books from the school library, among many other student discounts. You can order a student card from Frank’s website (www.frank.fi/en). You can order the card no earlier than 1.8.

Note, in order for you to get a student card, you need to give a permission for student card database to handle you information in Sisu. 

Before starting your studies, you should apply for a study grant. You can get a student grant application from Kela’s website (http://www.kela.fi/opintotuki_nain-haet). In order to receive study support in the future, you must complete at least 20 credits per year and 5 credits for each month of support applied for. In practice, therefore, in order to receive study grants for nine months, you must complete 31.7. by 45 credits.

Before moving to Lappeenranta or Lahti, it is also good to notify the post office. Then you will automatically get your mail to you to your new address.

During fresher weeks, you will learn about school practices, other students, and student life. You will also make your course selection for the first period with the help of your tutor. You should come to fresher weeks with an open mind and take an active part in the events. This is the easiest way to get involved in student life and get to know your future class mates.

Fresher weeks

During the fresher weeks, you will get to know your fellow students, the university, Lappeenranta and student life. You will immediately receive a personal tutor from whom you can ask anything related to school and student life. During fresher weeks, you will also meet your future teachers and other school staff with whom you will work later. Fresher weeks are again two weeks this year. In the first week, there are no lectures or courses yet, but you can focus on networking in peace. The courses already start in the second week, but there is enough evening program for each day.

Fresher weeks program 2023:

Lappeenranta

Sat 26.8.  Back 2 Uni

Mon 28.8. 


Tue 29.8.
  Fresher olympics

Wed 30.8.  Get-To-Know -Gemmi

Thu 31.8.  Suit-Up

Mon 4.9.  Beach party

Tue 5.9.  GenreMix

Wed 6.9.  Fresher orienteering

Thu 7.9. Fresher week’s end party

Lahti

Ke 30.8. Laho picnic

Pe 1.9.

  • Student welcome fair
  • Campus party 
  • Campus appro 

Beginning of the studies

As a fresher, you will immediately notice in the first few weeks that college studies are vastly different from the way you learn things in high school. In the same lecture hall, there may well be more than a hundred people studying the secrets of mathematics, on the other hand, things are also studied very much in smaller groups. Perhaps the most significant difference, however, is academic freedom, which allows you to study in a way that suits you. There is no need to sit in the lecture hall, although it is usually useful. The lecturer will be listened to voluntarily and other students should also be given the opportunity to do so by offering peace of mind.

Freedom also brings with it responsibility. In any case, you yourself have to learn the things required in the courses at some point and the required exercises must also be done even if no one is going to force you out of bed to do them and study things. It is important to learn to learn, that is, to develop the best way to study for oneself. To help you in this, you can use Learning Guide produced by the school, which tells you e.g. different learning techniques. Reading together with classmates and doing exercises also helps many internalize what they have learned in lectures.

The school has a wide range of study support services that are allowed to be used, even desirable. All degree programs have their own study advisors, tutors on the faculty of engineering, who provide study-related counseling and, in particular, assist in the planning and updating of the personal study plan HOPS. Peer tutors will be introduced during the freshman weeks and they will support you in getting to know the spirit of Skinnarila and integrating into university life. The Study Office, on the other hand, provides general counseling for all students, for example in connection with registration and study support. More information about these and other study support services provided by the university can be found on eLUT.