From Third World-Life to First-World Life: Education, Time & Quantity
Introduction
One of the possibilities I envisioned when I was accepted to study at a Finnish institution was to provide comparative insights on what is it like to live in a “third world country” and in a “first world country,” so I have been negotiating the meanings of certain experiences I've had in my time here. To better understand them, I’ve talked to locals, and I have pondered on what cultural elements conflict with my Costa Rican worldview. Briefly, I’m hoping I can reach a divide, in understanding these two realities with a critical eye through cross-cultural reflections. This essay focuses on education, time and quantity because despite ostensibly being quite apart as topics, I see them form a great part of the philosophy of life in Finland.
The sound of it, "Finland" encapsulates the endemic aura one can breathe in this country. Since "fin" in Spanish means "end" and "land" ... well, it means "land" in English, “Finland” sort of translates to me as the "end-land," the remotest place. But, more importantly, this "end-land" makes me think of a utopian place because of the many guarantees the country has assured itself to have and that I have not seen elsewhere before in my previous 23 years or so. Needless to say, there are comparable differences with my Costa Rican reality.
Free Education
Currently, education is free for most people in Finland (except non-EU members), which to me is the number one device of the Finnish society that makes everyone equal. Since all members of society are free to study, the society on its own is able to grow intellectually without financial restrictions. The benefits of it are numerous. First, the attainability of a stable life (through education) becomes palpable when all you have to do is prepare for an exam, apply for a study place and thrive in your studies. Second, the job specialization is higher than in most societies, which allows a faster, more specialized society to emerge (such as it can be seen in their transportation services). Third, attaining a degree doesn't become an achievement only feasible for those in power or the emergent middle class; rather, the mentality here is that if you put in the work, you can get it. The latter must directly feed the intrinsic locus of motivation of Finnish students, which is something I argue they must have acutely developed.
By all means, this differs considerably when compared to Costa Rica. Here’s how; first, not all citizens are equal or relatively equal in financial terms; while in Finland the social ladder is positively amorphous, in C.R. social inequality exists. The financial landscape can capture people in extreme poverty all the way to beach-house-owner aristocrats. As a consequence, this polarizes the population, so there are those attending private universities vs those attending public universities. It is worthwhile mentioning that, at the moment, there are only five public universities and many many many private ones. Also, private universities are way more expensive. In this way, the aristocracy continues to feed the transnational status of Costa Rica and makes this social division even more pervasive, which takes us to fact number two.
Second, the fact that university education is only attainable for the growing middle class does speak of how slowly Costa Rica can advance as a society and about the difficulty to build a successful life on the basis of one's education. To put it in a simpler way, those who manage to study at university level and graduate will cope as middle class; those who don’t will linger in a lower, striving circle of people who get poorly paid for their labor as cashiers, construction builders, house cleaners, and the like. I think you can agree with me that even “middle class” is quite a different concept for Finnish people and for Costa Rican people.
Fairness within the University
As a graduate from the University of Costa Rica (U.C.R.), I have repeatedly complained about a major flaw in the enrollment of courses. Such a process goes as follows: based on one's GPA, the system assigns enrollment appointments in a given week and it distributes them from highest to lowest and matches them from earliest to latest. Thus, people with a 9.8 GPA get appointments on Monday morning (first day of enrollment) and people with 7.7 get them on Wednesday (third day of enrollment). As the registration goes on, the system fills in the available slots for each course and if the course gets filled before your appointment, well you have to try another group (if available) and if all groups are filled, then; better luck next semester...
Now that right there, my friend, is what a top-down system forces the institution to do. The U.C.R. has a tremendous overflow of students since it is the most attended university in the whole country. Subsequently, the major flaw is that the institution is forcing students to value more deeply their grades than their learning outcomes. Therefore, the idea of "an easy-to-pass course" becomes not only an attractive resource but, to many, the only viable resource if they want to advance in their studies. It is a rather sad reality. This “easy-to-pass-course” reality then converges with the top-down system of registration leaving the least desired groups to the students with the lowest GPA.
It is notable though, that despite this being the case, by and large, some majors do escape from it since they have a rather cohesive and fair evaluation structure and have students graduate in due time. These are generally, the humanities, the majors most are not interested in taking, so once again, a somewhat misplaced fairness...
Conversely, the enrollment process in Finland is pacific. I see how here it's no longer a fight or race to see who gets what and when, but even their amount of social equity has wiggled its way inside the institutions and has established a different system. Thus, students in Finland are given a week or more to select the courses they want to take and the instructor (I believe) accepts or rejects people from the class on the basis of a different criterion that even involves where one is in one's studies. Fairness? Never thought I'd see say it but, it is possible...
Smarter Assessment
The Latin American scale is from 1-100 (alternatively 1-10), and courses usually have small percentages for quizzes, exams, presentations, attendance, and participation... One must get at least a 69.7 in a course to pass it. If it is below, students fail. However, there’s a small chance of doing something called "amplicación," just a fancy word to take a cumulative exam that you would most likely not pass. This latter scenario is possible only if you between 57.5 and 67.4. Good luck not falling in that gap because it’s chaotic and even some professors hate having to create an ampliación exam.
On the other hand, Finland's system is distributed from 1-5 and just the fact that you get one of those numbers will give you a passing grade (Zero would be the failing mark of course). This highly facilitates matters and blends very smoothly with the fabric of an ongoing, ever-learning society. For example, this allows the student who is also a parent of whatever age to be able to study and keep up with his/her family responsibilities. In the same way, it allows the working student to keep his/her job and his/her learning as the years go by. The fact that getting a 2 or a 4 or 5 or even 1 doesn't affect a GPA that will, later on, limit your upcoming enrollments cannot be more astounding to me. It is an incredible equilibrium.
Nevertheless, I know of the common belief that if one was to implement such measures in the Costa Rican educational system, even very poor-performing students would get to pass the courses, and that contaminates both the image of the institution and the quality of the professionals it graduates. It is a tough one indeed! On the one hand, people get a more accessible opportunity to study; on the other, people could take advantage of the system to make less effort and yield poor results. I trust it is here that the cultural fabric of Finns filters in and dictates transparent behavior from most people. They have a certain morality that is not as fragile as in other countries. But well... you can let me know what you think of adopting this assessment system in your country!
Time, time, everywhere!
Personally, I believe the concept and value of time speak of a societal philosophy since it dictates the pace of life, the social clock and it blends almost invisibly with the internal capacities of a city, thus mutating and manifesting itself in a manifold of possibilities. While in Costa Rica, time is usually regarded as something we have plenty of, Finland is very punctual and time-oriented. I believe this is expressed even in the common sayings; e.g., In Costa Rica, we have, "tenemos más tiempo que vida," which means "we have more time than life" and intends to give the idea of "don't rush too much, just enjoy life."
As for Finland, sayings vary quite a lot, but here are some: "Aika on rahaa" would be a very common one globally and is again, "time is money." Yet, I want to believe that this doesn't quite encompass the philosophy of Finnish life, but a global tendency of the last century. A better example that represents their philosophy would be "aika kultaa muistot" which means "time makes memories gold." As an outsider to much of their system and language cultural baggage, my interpretation of it is that the flow of time will make memories good, that good things require time to become golden. This could justify why Finnish friendship takes so much time in developing but once it's nascent, it will be there solid, like solidified gold... Moreover, despite my appreciation towards it, my Finnish sources say that it means "you remember things better than they really were," which blends in some of the necessary distance we all need to appreciate things. I guess, it's rather subjected to diverse appreciation, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide what it means for you.
Yet beyond this demotic, cultural expressions, the establishment of a social clock is rather different for Finnish people than for Costa Ricans. Moreover, a secondary effect of having such a sped-up society is that it simultaneously makes great demands on its citizens because if you can do it and the society gives you the wherewithal to do so, why wouldn't you? In light of this, it is actually very common to see people still "building their careers" around the ages of 40 and more. A university professor, for example, would still have a long way to go after 10 years of his/her Ph.D. graduation. Things just don't settle in that early in life in Finland.
Conversely, Costa Ricans, when building their careers through education, get to an age, usually bellow 32 and their statuses as engineers or professors or etc., pretty much remain the same for the following years or rest of their lives. In fact, most people can get a B.A. degree (which takes 4 years) and be happy with it for the rest of their lives working for a company while they work on small-scale personal projects. What these two instances evince is, first, that high speediness of society not only allows citizens to give more but also pushes them to. Second, the abstract notion of time becomes palpable when there is a clear command of humans over the machines. This attainability can be cross-culturally interpreted quite differently, thus, now, in my state of absolute societal in-betweenness, I cannot argue which one is better or worse for they just unfold differently in my opinion.
Quantity
In spite of Finland (especially Helsinki) being such an accelerated society, time does stop at one point and it is here where it blends with the philosophical paradox of “less is more and more is less.” I believe this dichotomy brings a notion of “quality” together with it. Let me explain.
Life in a first world country is quite different: freshwater everywhere, work possibilities of exercising one's interests and passions through it, good salaries, good services, less time in the transportation; more time in the things that matter, better climatological conditions (not this winter but most times), high-tech and highly--educated instruction, more educated people around you... and I'm just mentioning a few... The whole idea of “first world” is that all services are first-handed, full quality. It’s a matter of essence.
To pick one of the examples I just provide and elucidate a little more on it, let’s look at transportation as it allows people in both spectra to schedule their lives in very different ways. Most people would be shocked when they hear that in C.R., you can spend up to 4 hours just commuting to work/university. Depending on where you live, the streets will be packed with cars and bottlenecks would so asphyxiating and abundant that one's life is consumed by the primitiveness of the transportation system, its narrow streets, its overpopulation, its constant traffic-congested state. When in a bubble of this kind, one can only find things to do within the buses. “To kill time,” we call it. As a student, I used my time to read, listen to music, sleep, to eat... some of us talk for the time trip, others just immerse themselves in social media... a few of them in their thoughts... I think we become this collectively numb group that travels at a slow pace internally frustrated by the fact that we cannot have any better circumstances than this. Note please that I’m only talking about what you do inside these. I’m leaving aside how noisy the systems of transportation are, how humid it can get inside because it rains outside but it’s got a tropical weather and these systems don’t yet have air conditioning. I haven’t mentioned the contribution these long-waiting hours can have in one’s stress accumulation and it’s all intertwined.
By all means, a transportation system that's based on efficiencies such as Helsinki’s, a system that has a relatively small population for the land extension of the whole country and that has an infrastructure that develops before its inhabitants overpopulate the cities makes a tremendous difference. I can frankly admit that I have felt the change in my energy levels and in the many things I managed to do every day. While before, I could even revise for exams or listen to full podcast episodes on the bus, now most of these tasks I can only do partially inside the transportation systems. And no, I'm not complaining, of course. This reality makes me feel like I own more time. There is something about this man-over-the machine relationship that really makes time palpable, at least to me.
Finally, the way the dilemma of "less is more and more is less" manifests in here is the following. Poor conditions are multitudinous in C.R., which consequentially causes us this overwhelming anxiety and frustration that beyond becoming silently acknowledged and resigned to in the heart, we get to manifest it by repetition. In other words, we tend to draw circles in the behavior to "kill time." There are many ways I see this happening; for example, I see it in the social media loop people make: Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram... I see it in the not-so-nocuous tendency of speaking to everyone all the time, and in everyday expressions that only speak of Costa Ricans drawing another circle in their lives.
As a matter of conclusion, I believe that the laudable quality of life in Finland makes its citizens appreciate things more purely. This is the point in which I have realized that not because they are first world, they automatically are despondent consumers. Acceleration does not equal consumerism! (as it does in the States at least).
Here in Finland, quality, quantity and time translate to “just about the right amount.” It’s an appreciative modesty through brief instantiations that speak of life in its small, yet adequate proportions. For example, they only speak when necessary. Why bloviating the air with words when only the essentials can be articulated? It is in the silence of their culture, I believe, that a massive amount of philosophical, cultural and governmental undergird make this life possible and endurable. Long live the flatness of this society, its equality, and transparency.
-Photo by Leonardo Chinchilla
