Planning your studies
A Personal Study Plan or PSP (or HOPS in Finnish) is a part of all degree studies. The PSP includes information on which courses you will be completing at what point of your studies. You don't have to complete your Personal Study Plan all at once: it can be updated continuously as your studies progress.
Study modes of courses and degree programmes
LAB's blended teaching programmes include courses utilizing contact learning, courses that are taught online and courses that combine both online and contact teaching. Timetables for the courses are published by the start of each semester. Studying in the blended teaching programmes requires attendance on campus, for example weekly or monthly.
In the online programmes you can study flexibly online, except for a couple of on-campus days for example during orientation to studies. Online studies include both studies you do at your own pace as well as courses that are run according to a timetable. These courses can include scheduled online lectures and online meetings. According to your Personal Study Plan you might also have the possibility of enrolling in courses that require attendance on campus.
In contact teaching programmes you study primarily on-campus. Naturally also these studies can include online courses and courses that have parts of them online.
Many of our master’s programmes have schedules that are as working life friendly as possible. This means that timetables emphasize teaching during after-hours and on weekends, but they can also include individual full teaching days on weekdays.
Courses are taught using four different modes. In contact teaching lectures and other events are on campus according to the timetable. Teaching is planned with the expectation of attendance on campus. This means teaching can include interactivity such as live discussions, in-person group work, and learning of skills. The strengths of contact teaching are peer support and the development of communality and collaborative skills.
Blended teaching includes both online and on-campus teaching. For example, lectures can be given online, but the course's learning assignments could require guided or non-guided access to on-campus facilities such as laboratories or specialized equipment.
There are two kinds of online teaching: Scheduled online teaching is organized according to a timetable, even though everything happens online. Students are expected to attend teaching online in the same manner as contact teaching. Non-scheduled online teaching allows students to work at their own pace, within the given start and end dates for each assignment – or even the whole course.
The teacher chooses a study mode that is suited to the courses learning objectives while taking into account the nature of the degree programme. This can for example mean learning skills by working together on-campus or acquiring theoretical knowledge through learning online. On the other hand, teaching in an online programme will use different methods from a contact teaching programme's realization of the same course.
Different programmes also get students from different backgrounds, which is considered in the planning of a programme. For example, it's usually better to have more contact teaching in a programme taught in English. That's because the students that have moved to Finland to study probably want to grow their professional and academic networks in Finland, and therefore studying on-campus is a must for them.
Academic practices in the thesis phase include seminar work. Discussion during the seminars is an essential part of learning and it helps students progress in their work. Experientiality and peer support are vital parts of seminar work. They help everyone's personal process become part of a shared process and schedule. As a result students working on their thesis become a community that supports their progress both in terms of academic content and as a process. To this end meetings on campus are beneficial and important. In online degree programmes similar meetings can be organized online, in which case everyone takes part in them online to ensure an equal standing.