Uef application process

When thinking about applying for an international degree either master’s or bachelor, in the beginning when you consider all the documents needed and if you have to take a language test or not or even the cultural differences, it seems super difficult specially when you ant to be granted a scholarship along the degree that was the challenge for me.

As soon as I found and decided to apply for a Master’s degree in Medical Physics at the UEF, all of this happened in November 2017 the application period has already started and I still had enough time until the end of January to prepare my documents and my language test.

First thing I did was that I read everything on the UEF and the program’s webpage all I was doing was taking notes, considering any question that I might ask to make my application flawless or at least minimize the errors that might occur. the coordinator of the program and I were communicating by email, mainly I had a lot of questions – of course – and she was and still a great help to me. I stayed in contact with her even after I sent my application.

I made a list of all the requirements and started going through it point by point. I got my bachelor degree certificate, transcript, recommendation letters and language test ready and that was the easy part, the part that would be most challenging and would make my application look good or not was the motivation letter (statement of purpose) I put myself in the position of the selection committee, like if I read this letter would I give a study place to this person or not? I asked my professors for help; I asked myself how could I do that in one or two pages maximum? I need to write myself in that letter, putting my future plan and my career goals into that letter and also expressing all of that with my passion for that field “Medical Physics” plus I included why should they grant me a scholarship how could I tell them that they will give money to study at their University that will become mine later? that of course didn’t happen in one night and it wasn’t not easy or even near easy. I spent more than 10 days adding, removing and improving that letter! When I finally was satisfied with the resulting letter it was about time to send my application.

Moment of truth, clicking the submit button! I double checked everything in my application and sent it one week before the deadline, great thing about UEF application system or I can safely say the Finnish Application System is that it is very smooth not much room for making mistakes, simply write some personal information then upload the required documents then we come to the big step before clicking the green submit button! quick scan the application just making sure that everything is where they supposed to be then send.

Finnish people are known with their punctuality. They said that the results would be nice March and it did. I have no idea how did I managed to survive until March. On March 26th 2018 at 14:22 I got an email that changed my life, “Dear Hagar Abouelazm, We have the pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio campus.” That was worth it. And yeah I got the scholarship!!

I accepted the offer then I followed the instructions said in the acceptance letter and everything went as planned. They assisted me with everything after, they provided every document for getting my visa and my insurance.

And here I’m have just finished my first semester in my Master’s and getting ready for the second one with every single ounce of energy in me because here in the UEF when you work hard you will get rewarded and you will see the results of your work and that is our motivation here.

Hagar Abouelazm