Graduation days over

We had our graduation days last Thursday in LUT and Saturday in St.Pete. I was one of the few lucky ones who got the diploma also from GSOM (only 5 non-Russian students got it...). For the rest, they are now entering the nostrification process again with their freshly printed Finnish Masters. Graduating from Russia shouldn't be a problem, but it will take some time. I really do hope that everyone will get their double degree.

The ones who didnt get the GSOM diploma, got just a transcript of records. Lousy ones that is. For example on one student the contact hours during the course was according to the transcript something like 4700 which is obviously ridiculous. Also the grades weren't right for most courses and some courses were twice on the list while some where missing. Ridiculous.

Russian graduation ceremony was definitely more ceremonylike than that at LUT. Started well, before it collapsed in to pieces (because of taking photos, unorganized ending etc). All the graduates wore the gowns which was a cool experience. Kinda felt like Harry Potter - especially since we got also the school mascots which is an owl.

Good memories from that day as well as from the whole program. From academic point of view I am a bit disappointed, but as a life experience MITIM has been truly awesome.

Apostilles, nostrification and a huge mess.

Hah, why I am not surprised? Last week we had to pay 10000 rubles for nostrification of our documents to Master's office at the university. This week, quite many of my co-students have gotten some part of that money back so I went to get my money too. But there was a problem, of course. The lady in the office first said that I haven't given her all the necessary apostilles during the previous weeks. Which I of course did. After a few minutes of discussion and "no you didn't - yes I did"-play she checked her bookcase and voila, there they were. Because of my "missing" apostilles she was not able to deliver my documents for nostrification process which just makes it longer for me.

Also, my apostilles are not good enough they say. The apostilles I gave her are originals and they include copies of my diplomas, which were notarized by Finnish lawyers. So really legal stuff. Many of my student colleagues have exactly the same kind of copies and they are okay. This situation does not make any sense, but let's see how this develops in the future. Oh, and the 10000 rubles I paid for the nostrification is not enough for them because my diploma + supplements have so many pages... Kjeh. I also had to give them my original diplomas earlier, just like all the rest of foreign MITIM students. I wonder whether I will even get my diplomas back and if so, when I will get them. I bet in the year 2011.