The Polytechnical Student Union (PF) visited AYY, the Student Union of Aalto University in Finland for the 5-year anniversary.
As representatives from the largest Student Union in Denmark, we were curios to visit a student union with approx. 10.000 more members and a budget we can only dream of. Three days later we left a lot wiser, with new insights in student organization and new friends.
Our weekend with AYY was amazing. The student union deals with many of the same issues we know from back home – housing, regulates from the government and student economy are all much debated. But even though the issues are the same, our unions are organized in a slightly different manner.
Caroline and Rune posing with their new overalls (and Milja from AYY on the right)
The culture at Aalto, we quickly learned, resembles DTU’s student culture in many ways. At Aalto nobody is surprised if a chicken and a dragon walk in to the party. The way of showing your relation to a specific field of study with all-overs, as well as colourful ribbons and pins promoting the student union, were a great inspiration for us.
All in all, we were very privileged to visit Aalto, and gained a lot of inspiration from the visit. We spent a weekend asking many questions, and only one was left unanswered – “How can a country so far north be so fond of annanas?“
We look forward to more collaboration in the future – whether our last question will be answered or not, nobody knows, but we do know we can still learn a lot from each other.
Caroline Dragsdahl
President of the Polytechinal Student Union