Metropolia Transition to Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology

[aleksa]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for recommending Finland's universities for cheap source of RA credits. For someone like me who is an EU citizen there is an option to transition from Metropolia's 180ECTS to a full 4 year Bachelor of Engineering degree free of charge. This was mentioned on this forum's wiki here https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Me...d_Sciences

From there, students are able to apply to the Bachelor's in Information Technology. This can be completed online, from anywhere, but there is an internship/work experience requirement. Students who are already working in Information Technology may be eligible to have this portion waived. This would leave 15-30 ECTS that must be completed at Metropolia. The final year of this Bachelor's degree is free for EU/EEA students, but 10000€ for everyone else.

I'm interested in pursuing this path but the problem is that I can't find that option anymore. I've sent emails to couple of professor but haven't yet received any reply so I'm hoping maybe someone from the forum already took this path.

So, I am currently enrolled in the Open UAS path for the Degree Programme of Information Technology, online studies, with 180 ECTS credits.

I found a link (https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/a...as-studies), but it only mentions the Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and the Master of Engineering in Information Technology. I couldn't find information about the specific program I'm interested in, which is the Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology, online studies.

Does anyone know  if this program is available and provide guidance on how I can transition from Open UAS to this Bachelor's program? I'm keen to understand the requirements and application process.

Thanks for the wonderful forum, I've learned a lot from you all. You are changing people's lives for the better.

[rachel83az]

I don't think it ever said online studies. It's this degree: https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/b...technology

It was inquiries by forum members that revealed that the last 1/4 of the degree could be completed online; the degree page itself doesn't state this directly. But it's heavily implied by looking at the degree details page here: https://opinto-opas.metropolia.fi/88094/.../3319/2489 Essentially, everything but the final thesis/projects are available through the Open University section. It only requires that the university agrees to allow the student to complete the rest remotely as well.

[Tomas]

Best to wait for info from them IMHO, unless someone has it already of course.
It is possible it will not be opened at this time, or maybe they will add it later. That webpage seems to be changing, last time I looked I would bet that BEng in IT was listed as pending (I might be wrong though), now it is not listed at all.
I believe more matching degree plan is this:
https://opinto-opas.metropolia.fi/88095/...70331/3376
that it is online degree and other info is here (it strangely includes info on applying for online studies via full time studies application, but I have no clue whether that applies to Open UAS path students):
https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/b...ne-studies

[bjcheung77]

I am looking at this program itself, but only for the first 3 years instead of 4 at just 579 Euro. Having said that, the final year can be done elsewhere by transferring in these credits. This is a very good program for those in the EU, if you can find the institution to finish at and if it's a very enticing price point, you can try finishing the Bachelors in IT there.

[aleksa]

Hi Rachel and Tomas,

Thanks for your answers.

I wasn't able to get any replies from professors at Metropolia for days but today I did get a response and an explanation. I was told to check out this link https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/o.../it-online and it's explained there that you can apply on the Basis of Finnish Higher Education Studies here https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/a...on-studies. Strangely it points to in person studies. My confusion stemmed from thinking that I would have to apply on the Basis of Metropolia’s Open UAS Studies https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/a...as-studies and on this page you can only find info for Master of Engineering, Information Technology not Bachelors.

I stumbled on the same link that Tomas has shared and they seem to offer online studies for this program here: https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/b...ne-studies

So my guess would be that we should apply on the Basis of Finnish Higher Education Studies and hope to be able to complete required 15 ECTS courses online. 30 ECTS comes from work experience and the last 15 ECTS are for the bachelor thesis.

[Tyler_]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for recommending Finland's universities for cheap source of RA credits. For someone like me who is an EU citizen there is an option to transition from Metropolia's 180ECTS to a full 4 year Bachelor of Engineering degree free of charge. This was mentioned on this forum's wiki here https://degreeforum.miraheze.org/wiki/Me...d_Sciences

From there, students are able to apply to the Bachelor's in Information Technology. This can be completed online, from anywhere, but there is an internship/work experience requirement. Students who are already working in Information Technology may be eligible to have this portion waived. This would leave 15-30 ECTS that must be completed at Metropolia. The final year of this Bachelor's degree is free for EU/EEA students, but 10000€ for everyone else.

I'm interested in pursuing this path but the problem is that I can't find that option anymore. I've sent emails to couple of professor but haven't yet received any reply so I'm hoping maybe someone from the forum already took this path.

So, I am currently enrolled in the Open UAS path for the Degree Programme of Information Technology, online studies, with 180 ECTS credits.

I found a link (https://www.metropolia.fi/en/academics/a...as-studies), but it only mentions the Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and the Master of Engineering in Information Technology. I couldn't find information about the specific program I'm interested in, which is the Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology, online studies.

Does anyone know  if this program is available and provide guidance on how I can transition from Open UAS to this Bachelor's program? I'm keen to understand the requirements and application process.

Thanks for the wonderful forum, I've learned a lot from you all. You are changing people's lives for the better.

Hello aleska, 

I was looking out for some info about this Open UAS course in IT since after that I would like to apply to get a full Bachelor degree as you - I was trying to find out some more info from the University itself, but it does not seem that I get many responses and then I stumbled in your post in this forum!

Would you mind sharing your experience so far and clearing some of my doubts please? Your help would be much appreciated!

- How did you find the course in general?
- Are there for each subjects video lectures or is it mainly "text-based"?
- Do they provide some learning materials (like books in pdf)? Going through the subjects, sometimes they mention that you can find some materials on different platform like: "Study Enviroment", "LabSim", "Viope", or they simply mention "Online". Sometimes they don't mention anything at all.. do you need to get credentials for any of them? 
- When you enroll as a OUAS student, can you have access to the Metropolia's online library for ebooks/materials? 
- Do they give you an official university student email address?

Regarding the exams:
- Do you know how many times can you resit an exam if you fail it? In some subjects it's not specified, in others it says 2 times and in others it says 3.. so I'm a bit confused..

Regarding the transition:
- Did you find out whether it's possibile to complete the degree online after the transition?
- I went through the curriculum of the degree and when you sit an exam, they will mark it only as passed/failed. 

Since after finishing the course I would like to apply to get a full degree like you, do you know how the grades (failed/passed) will be translated to get the final grade of the Bachelor? I have looked at the "traditional" Bachelor's curriculum in IT, and each exams is marked between 1 - 5, so at the end of it, I guess they calculate an average of your grades and give you a final grade for your degree, but I can't figure it out how this would work if we do the OUAS path first. 

I've asked clarifications about this, but I did not get an answer yet.. I was wondering whether they explained this to you and how it works?

- I've seen that for applying for transitioning, you need to go through the application based on the Finnish HES and it seems compulsory to have a Finnish ID number (which I haven't since I'm not from Finland - maybe you are, I don'know..). If you are not from Finland, how did you manage to get this resolved?  

Community:
I 've looked online whether there was a community on Telegram or a discord server for the Metropolia University for this degree, but I couldn't find any. Did you find anything by chance? 

Thanks a lot in advance for your help! 

[Tomas]

It shall be possible to complete the degree online, at least that's what I gathered from what people posted in various threads here, after they have asked about this at Metropolia and it seemed to me that they confirmed it.
Yes, you will receive an official university student email address. However it's only accessible from Finland, to access it outside of Finland you have to use Metropolia VPN which they will give you access to.
How many times you can "resit exam" differs, I've seen courses that only have 1 attempt, and you have to ask by email if you need more.
Video lectures are relatively rare. In Moodle I've seen one or two courses that had links to Youtube videos. Viope courses are all without video I think. Mostly it's text based. Some computer courses are based on Freecodecamp. Economics on some open source economics ebook.
They will send you credentials, at least for Viope and Metropolia Moodle. I didn't receive credentials for other platforms (Labsim etc.) so I guess I'll have to ask them about it.

[Tyler_]

I've emailed them and they say that yes, it's possible to complete the degree online.

I've asked clarifications about the materials/video lectures but they have been ambiguous, they just said: "It depends" without specifying.
So reading what's your experience so far, it will be for the most part text based (which is not ideal for me given my learning style) and basically kind of self-taught searching for videos on YouTube (which can also happens in traditional uni.. but I was hoping for some more "guidance").

The thing that concern me the most is that if you enrol in this Open UAS Degree Path programme of 180 credits, the exams that you take are not graded: in Finland they grade exams between a range 1 - 5, while if you take this path, the grades are only passed/failed.

So basically, when you will complete your degree with the extra 60 credits and you get the "real" degree, there won't be any final GPA (that's what they told me). It will be "passed".

This thing kind of concern me - if I would like to apply for a master or for an intern/job position, they usually ask to share your bachelor final GPA, or, if you haven't completed it yet, they ask you a transcripts of records of the exams you already held with your GPA.

But even on the transcripts there are no grades, only passed/failed.

Overall, it seems a pretty good way to get a degree almost for free (if you live in EU), but if you graduate without a GPA, I don't know how much useful and recognised this would be when it comes to apply for jobs or intern position (especially if you don't have any previous working experience in IT, which is my case).

[davewill]

Overall, it seems a pretty good way to get a degree almost for free (if you live in EU), but if you graduate without a GPA, I don't know how much useful and recognised this would be when it comes to apply for jobs or intern position (especially if you don't have any previous working experience in IT, which is my case).

WGU does something similar where all your courses are pass/fail. They claim that a pass is equivalent to a "B" grade, and it doesn't seem to hurt too many students here. Also, most of the degree paths we talk about here involve alternative credit that does not carry a grade, and people often graduate with only a handful of graded courses, sometimes only 1 or 2. Grad schools and employers are not fooled by such, and again, it doesn't seem to cause problems.

[Tomas]

I've asked clarifications about the materials/video lectures but they have been ambiguous, they just said: "It depends" without specifying.
So reading what's your experience so far, it will be for the most part text based (which is not ideal for me given my learning style) and basically kind of self-taught searching for videos on YouTube (which can also happens in traditional uni.. but I was hoping for some more "guidance").

Overall, it seems a pretty good way to get a degree almost for free (if you live in EU), but if you graduate without a GPA, I don't know how much useful and recognised this would be when it comes to apply for jobs or intern position (especially if you don't have any previous working experience in IT, which is my case).

IMHO everything you need to pass the courses shall be included in their materials. 
However, if you study to become professional in certain fields (ie. not just to pass and get the diploma), not so sure, that likely depends (whether you will have to supplement with self-taught time).
Programming part is mostly based on Freecodecamp.
IT part might be more rigorous, thats just a guess though I didnt see those courses yet as they are not on Moodle.

In Europe, where I live, nobody would care about GPA for jobs. Not sure about entries to more competitive master studies. However, if I ever complete the degree, so far I plan to continue in Finland for masters too, it should be no problem then. Or the GTECH online CS masters degree from what I feel shall be no problem either.