First steps of a new degree student

You will receive an email with your letter of admission and instructions for accepting the study place offered to you. If you do not follow the instructions and fail to accept the place on offer by the deadline, you will lose your place. The deadline will be specified in the same email message.

After accepting your study place, you must also register as an attending or non-attending student at the University. Your letter of admission will be accompanied by registration instructions. Read the instructions carefully and take care of registration before the given due date. If you register as attending, keep in mind to also pay the mandatory student healthcare fee.

If you are liable to pay tuition fees, you will be automatically registered after you have paid your tuition fee. Please note that you must take care of the mandatory student healthcare fee yourself.

Instructions for attendance registration for your first study year and for paying the healthcare fee are also available in the instructions for accepted applicants (helsinki.fi).

In the coming study years, you must take care of annual registration each year during the given registration period.

If you have been accepted conditionally, you need to prove your eligibility separately. If you have not yet proved your eligibility for Bachelor’s or Master’s studies, you will also be emailed instructions for doing so. You can find the conditional acceptance either from My Studyinfo website, the e-mail sent to you by Admissions services or from another specified website. You will lose the place offered to you if you fail to prove your eligibility by the deadline. The deadline will be specified in the same email message or website which will be sent to you.

Once you have accepted your study place and registered as an attending or non-attending student, your information will be saved in the University’s student register and you will be notified by email about this.

You can then obtain a certificate of student status to prove, when necessary, that you are a student of the University of Helsinki. You can get a digitally signed transcript with your attendance information from Sisu after you have been enrolled at the University as attending and you have received your IT account username (please see “Activate your user account” below). We recommend having the digital version of the certificate of student status on your phone, but also that you bring one printed copy with you.

If necessary, you can also collect a certificate of student status from Student Services.

All attending students are given an IT username to the University's network. Most public computers on the campuses as well as the University's wireless network require you to log in with your username and password. The access right includes a username and password, an email address, disk space on a server and access to various programs. Basically you will need your user account for almost everything digital at the University of Helsinki.

You can activate your user account four months before your study right begins on 1 August and once your information is recorded in the student register. The student register will inform you by email when your information has been recorded. 

Please note that you cannot use the University’s data systems (e.g. register for courses or print a digitally signed transcript) until you have activated your user account.

Activating the account online requires a Finnish e-banking account or an electronic user ID and a card reader. If you do not have a Finnish e-banking account or electronic user ID, please take the following actions:

1. Fill out the IT username application form (pdf) online and sign it. A username and an e-mail address will be assigned to you based on your first name and surname. If desired, you can suggest a username (4-8 letters, a-z) and/or an e-mail address in the "Reasons for applying for a username" section of the form. After being set, the username can only be changed in exceptional circumstances.
2. Send a picture of your signed application by email to the IT Helpdesk (helpdesk@helsinki.fi) using the subject line: “Degree student video identification: Firstname Lastname”
3. After your application has been processed, you will receive a notification to visit a Helpdesk ID point personally or instructions for video identification. You will receive an e-mail from the IT helpdesk with information on how to book an appointment. After receiving the email, fill in your details in the booking system. Please note that it can take up to a couple of weeks before you receive the reply.
4. For the actual online appointment, you need to have your official ID (e.g. passport) at hand and make sure you are in a well-lit space with a stable and safe internet connection preferably in a private surrounding. 

If the activation of user accounts is not possible in before 1 August, the reason may be a technical challenge related to the registration of study rights (for example, in the case of students not attending due to a statutory reason). In this case, the account can be activated starting on 1 August or in urgent cases by contacting IT-Helpdesk.

For detailed instructions for activating your account, please see IT-Helpdesk's instructions. You can also read more about the IT services offered by the University of Helsinki on IT-Helpdesk's page for new students.

As a member of the University of Helsinki Student Union (HYY), you will be able to get a Finnish student card which is your means of proving that you're a student in Finland in all situations necessary.

Once your information has been saved in the student register, you can download Frank App on your smartphone and activate your digital student card. The digital student card provides all the same student benefits (e.g. discounts at UniCafe, public transportation HSL, the Finnish Student Health Service FSHS and UniSport) as the traditional plastic card. You can begin to use Frank App as of 1 August, i.e., when your right to study begins. Once you have received your personal identity code (see "Re­gis­ter with the au­thor­it­ies"), inform it to the Student Services and re-load the Frank App to synchronize it with the new information in the University’s database.

You can also order a plastic student card.

As a member of the Student Union, you will also receive a student calendar. You can collect your calendar from the Kaisa Library service desk, the Meilahti, Kumpula or Viikki campuses, or the HYY service point.

In the Studies Service (studies.helsinki.fi) you can find the most important digital tools, services and other content that you will need during your studies, all under one address. You can for example follow current topics in your studies, search for courses and read instructions that support your studies. From the main navigation menu, you can find the front page of the service, your own study calendar, the instructions for your studies, the courses search tool and links to other essential services like Sisu.

Via the Studies Service you can also log in to Flamma. Flamma is both a staff intranet and a channel for the whole University community to participate and contribute. On Flamma you can take part in discussions on current issues and find out about the University's decision-making process.

In addition to the news in the Studies Service, don’t forget to follow communications sent through email. Always use your University of Helsinki email address for handling study-related matters.

As a new student you will start your studies with orienting studies, guided by a student tutor. During the orientation you will be assigned to a tutoring group, led by a senior student from your home faculty.

Get acquainted with the schedules of the orientation on the page Orientation and tutoring.

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