Late arrival checklist for exchange and visiting students

About a week after you receive your acceptance letter, you will receive instructions for how to activate your IT-user account from our address studentexchange@helsinki.fi. This email will also include your student number. 

The IT-user account is necessary for signing in to University of Helsinki platforms, registering on courses and registering with the authorities upon your arrival. Once you have activated the username, you can download a Certificate of Student status from SISU, which you need e.g. to prove your student status for student cafeterias and the public transportation.

1. Fill in and sign the IT username application form, and send it to helpdesk@helsinki.fi. When filling the application, please write studentexchange@helsinki.fi as your contact person at the University of Helsinki and the dates of the exchange, which are mentioned e.g. in your acceptance letter.  Leave the username and IT-center part empty. 

2. When sending the application, please write “Exchange student video identification: Firstname Lastname” into the subject field of your email.

3. You will receive an e-mail from helpdesk@helsinki.fi with further instructions. Please wait patiently and check your spam/junk folder regularly. 

4. Follow carefully the instructions you receive from helpdesk, especially if there are time sensitive actions (e.g. an activation code). 

Take care of the IT username application as early as possible, but two weeks before the beginning of your study right at the absolute latest. 

In case you were not able to activate your IT user account before your arrival to Finland, you can visit the nearest ID point and call helpdesk after your visit. Please check the opening hours of the ID point and helpdesk before visiting as the code for identifying yourself with helpdesk is valid only a limited time. 

We recommend using the helsinki.fi email when contacting personnel at the University of Helsinki. If you don't wish to read this mailbox, please make sure to forward the emails to an inbox you do read as any course related information will be sent to this email. If you are doing research, your colleagues in the laboratory may try to reach you through this email. The university of Helsinki uses Office 365 mail system. 

Your home institution may require an arrival certificate to be signed by us. If you are unsure whether you need one or not, please ask from your home university. This is not a form from the University of Helsinki. Should you need one signed, you can visit the student services during their opening hours or send the certificate as a word/pdf document together with a copy of your travel tickets to studentexchange@helsinki.fi. Please leave the dates blank on the form.

Once you have your IT user account, you can download your certificate of student status from Sisu student register. The certificate of student status includes your student number. You can use this certificate to prove your student status at e.g. the student cafeteria to get the lunch discount. It's usually valid only at the services provided by the university. If you wish to make sure you get all possible student discounts, you need to join the student union (HYY) to get the frank app, which is used as a student card in Finland.

Joining the student union is voluntary for Exchange and Visiting students. However, certain discounts, such as the student discount for the trains / long distance buses are only valid for student union members. Exchange and visiting students can join the Student Union (HYY) until the end of September for the autumn term and until the end of January for the spring term. If your study right begins after these dates and if you want to join the Student Union, you can do so within 14 days of the start of your exchange. If you for some exceptional reason have received the visiting student acceptance letter after the start of your exchange, you can join within 14 days from the day you got the acceptance letter ( in such a case, please forward a copy of your acceptance letter to the email address given below). 

Student Union membership is not valid before the payment, which is why we strongly recommend you take care of this before arriving to Finland and send the receipt of the payment to info@hyy or studentinfo@helsinki.fi (only one of these addresses). You will find instructions for joining the Student Union in your acceptance email from the University of Helsinki.

If you are unable to pay the membership fee via bank transfer, you may pay it by card (Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard, EuroCard, Maestro) at HYY Services Office when you arrive.

Voluntary membership fees are non-refundable. If you wish to join the student union, please make sure to pay preferably before arriving to Finland, but by the above mentioned deadline the latest. 

1. The student card ( and the more commonly used digital version on Frank app ) is available to Student Union members only.
2. If you have joined the Student Union (HYY), and once you have sent us a copy of the receipt, you can apply for a Student Card online,   or at the Student Union office. Please see HYY opening hours.
3. The electronic mobile app "frank app" is all you need - no need to order the physical student card.
4. For the card you need your student number, it is listed on your Certificate of Student Status (found in Sisu).

As an exchange / visiting student, you are entitled to discounted fares in public transport in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The discount is available only for undergraduate students and Master's level students.

To get the student discount for public transportation:

1. You can get the certificate you need for the discount from the International Exchange Services or from the Student Services.
2. Go to HSL Travel Card office, located at the Mall of Tripla.
3. Take your ID and certificate of student status with you.
4. You can use the Journey planner to find the HSL office.

PhD students

As a visiting PhD student, you can get a travel card meant for local residents by registering your address in Helsinki at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. 

• Print out your certificate of student status from Sisu.
• Visit the Digital and Population Data Services Agency where you can ask for a certificate for temporary place of domicile. Once the place of domicile has been registered, you can visit the HSL office.
• Take with you the certificate of student status, certificate for temporary place of domicile and your passport. Read more about the season ticket prices on the HSL website. 

Re­gis­tra­tion periods for courses may have ended. If you arrive in the very beginning of the period, you can still contact the teacher and ask if you can join the course. If there is space and you have not missed classes, this may still be possible. Name of the responsible teacher can be found in Sisu / courses. If you arrive later and have missed classes, you may not be able to join courses for the first / third period. If the registration for a course has not ended, please take care of registrations as soon as possible. You will need your IT user account for this. In order to be able to register for courses, you first need to create a study plan in Sisu. Please follow these instructions on how to create a study plan in sisu as an exchange student. Please note that you can register for courses only during the validity of your study right. 

Please read our instructions on how to register with the authorities. 

Please update your Finnish address and the phone number you use during your exchange in Sisu. 

In the beginning of the term we add all exchange / visiting students to our exchange-info-list with your helsinki.fi email address. If you had not yet logged in to your helsinki.fi email address in the beginning of the term, you have not been added. If you have not received any emails via the list, we recommend you to subscribe to exchange-info-list@helsinki.fi to get interesting updates on current study related topics.

Actions related to managing mailing lists, such as subscribing and unsubscribing, are made by sending e-mail commands to the list server in majordomo@helsinki.fi.

Subscribe with the command:

subscribe list-name firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi

For example: subscribe exchange-info-list@helsinki.fi jane.doe@helsinki.fi

The command is entered in the text section of the e-mail. Do not write anything else in the email, even your signature. Leave the subject field empty.

To get a better picture of what you need to take care regarding your arrival to Finland to start your studies, check the Uni Arrival Advisor. 

• You find useful online events in the Information sessions for exchanges students
• All relevant instructions for students can be found in the Instructions for students.
• Register for the student organization email lists / join Facebook groups
  • TSEMPPI Organization for International Degree Students
  • ESN Erasmus Student Network
  • Each Faculty and almost all degree programmes have their own student associations. See HYY's organisations for more information. 

If you can't find what you are looking for in our instructions, feel free to contact the International Exchange Services by email or telephone or drop by during our drop-in office hours. We're happy to help!