News in English

Storm Worm blocks email

In late August to early September email boxes at the university and around the world were filling with spam faster than usually. Ads for Viagra and other advertising spam flooded email accounts especially through different mailing lists.

According to System Planner Leena Heino from the University of Tampere Computer Centre the recent spam flood is caused by the Storm Worm virus that spreads through the internet via the computers of careless users.

“This little worm has been gathering strength for at least a month. It had not been used for large scale operations yet but now that seems to be happening too."

Spam can spread via the computers of ordinary computer users but the people who originally unleash the worms are usually criminals.

“The best way to deal with spam is to delete it all and never buy the products advertised in spam messages," Heino instructs.

It is hard to completely avoid spam if subscribing to any public mailing list. More spam found its way into peoples inboxes because the spammers were able to get around the spam filters on email servers and it will take a while for the service providers to adjust the filters.

For information on blocking and filtering spam contact the Computer Centre www.uta.fi/laitokset/tkk/english/index.shtml.

Tamy investigates students´ need for childcare services

Tamy is investigating its members need for a crèche that would offer temporary childcare. The present plans would have the crèche open autumn next year.

“At first the service could run on examination days. If the crèche becomes popular, the service could be offered more often. A prerequisite for opening the crèche is getting free facilities for it from the university", explains Tamy´s Secretary for Social Affairs Niina Kiviaho.

In the preliminary plans the crèche would be located in the top floor of Attila, the university´s old main library, from where Tamy will be receiving facilities.

To keep the service reasonably priced Tamy is applying for funding from Finland´s Slot Machine Association (RAY) and the City of Tampere. A similar service provided by the Student Union of the University of Helsinki costs three euros per hour.

“Almost 90 percent of students want to have children at some point. There has always been this thinking that academic people focus on their career and do not wish to have children. Research done on academic women over 50, for example, shows that they have no children more often than women with lower education", says Aira Virtala from the Finnish Student Health Service.

However, according to research students and people with higher education are more eager to to have children than non-academics.

“Before, the idea was that first you graduate and then you start a family. This was based on students graduating earlier, at around 24 to 25. And that works really well with biology, too. These days many students keep studying until they are thirty and at that point they have trouble fitting children together with starting their careers", Virtala explains.

UTA to teach Finnish in China

This autumn in Nanjing China, 22 university students start a Bachelor of Arts degree which is mostly in Finnish. The pioneering cooperation is coordinated by the University of Tampere.

Half of the Chinese students´ weekly lessons will focus on Finnish language and culture. In atumun 2008, the student group will arrive at UTA to continue their studies in language and communication here for two years.

No other university in Finland has similar language teaching cooperation with China. In addition to exporting Finnish culture, the project aims to strengthen knowledge of China at Tampere.

Over 40 percent of freshers have prior university studies

Two out of five of the students enrolled at the University of Tampere in 2006 had prior studies from a university or a university of applied sciences. The information is from a survey which will be published soon and was quoted by Rector Krista Varantola at the term opening ceremony.

Some reasons for prior studies are getting additional competence from a partial degree and getting a second degree. Part of the students are not enrolled to their university or course of choice and they study something else first. Some apply again after graduating to get student benefits.

Old student loan interests can be lowered

It can be possible to adjust the interest of an old student loan with a single phone call. The marginals of loans have gone down considerably since the 90s because of lower general interest rates and competition between banks. Ten years ago a loan´s marginal may have been higher by even a percentage unit. The marginal is the percentual share a bank charges in addition to market interest. At present, student loans usually have margins of under 0.5 percent.

Broken student card can eat your meals

Almost a hundred of Tamy´s micro chipped student cards have broken since they were introduced in 2002. When the chip on a student card breaks the meal payments loaded on it are lost. Generally meals lost due to a broken card are not refunded.

Replacing a broken student card is free though you will have to pay for a new photo unless your old application is still filed at Tamy.

Most of the owners of broken cards have been medicine students. Because of this, one suggested cause are the strong magnets used in some facilities at Faculty of Medicine.

Quick Cash Help terms tighten

Tamy´s Quick Cash Help no longer gives short term loans to applicants who have not paid their prior loans back in time. One of the Quick Cash Help terms has always been that applicants who have not paid their prior loans back in time can only be given new loans in exceptional circumstances. Now the terms will be followed more rigorously.

A formerly late paying applicant can get a another loan if they have negotiated a new payment schedule soon after the due date.

This year there have been 62 applications for short term loans, whereas, five years ago there were 500 applications per year.

Translations: Aatu Lehtovaara