r/Tampere • u/Beginning-Studio1109 • 8d ago
Education Thinking of studying a semester in TAMK
Im thinking of going into TAMK for a semester on the first half of 2026, the coursed I saw look pretty great and I have heard many great things about the university when it comes to game design classes. However my doubts come from the inmense change of culture and environment once im there. Im from Mexico City and to go to such a chaotic but complete city to somewhere that I see as a more quiet (and civilized) town is honestly quite daunting even if I love the quoet lifestyle most of the time. How much of a change should I expect? What can a student do around town for entertainment? Is nightlife a thing? And are there hobby stores for warhammer and those types of games?
Im also trying to learn as much finnish as I can so im not completely lost, but still I want to ask of emglish is common there.
Im sorry if I sound ignorant with my assumptions, I just wish to clear this doubts off my head and convince my friends thst im not luring them out to the middle of nowhere. Thanks for reading and for any help.
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u/Lilogy 8d ago
TAMK has lot of student parties and Tampere has places to be. For example I started TAMK this fall and this week alone could have already went to 3 different things that included drinking and looking app for party stuff this fall gonna be pretty booked for those.
There is two game bars Lategame and Save File + boardgame cafe Taverna
Tampere is Finland's 3rd biggest city and while your standards may be different, but it means there is active nightlife and lot to do + students keep having so much parties (and Tampere being 3rd biggest is like hmm. 2nd biggest is city next to capital and it is almost extension of it and now I am offending most likely all people living there, but oh well)
English is semi-mandatory to learn in Finland so especially younger people do manage it decently well (i think mandatory is to have one "longer" language and most have that as English like it is not mandatory to be English but) so you will survive decently well with English only.
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u/ginger357 8d ago
There is usually somekind of studentparty/event every thursday.
There is also club for international and exhange students, that organizes parties an events for you international people.
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u/Frisbeejussi 8d ago
There's game stores for warhammer can't name them off the top of my head.
It's a big city and in my limited experiences feels the same as most European big cities.
Tamk is not an university it's university of applied sciences, there's a clear distinction. More hands on and less theory.
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u/Beginning-Studio1109 8d ago
I shall visit them in that case.
I see, it appears I have the wrong idea as of the size of tampere, by looking at its population I assumed it was more like a town than a city.
I did not realize there was a meaning to the name, I like that its more hands on so this just makes me want to go even more. Thank you very much for the help.
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u/wertyce 7d ago
Less theory, but also generally lower level. Regular TAMK graduate is just a bachelor. There is also less known possibility to study also master's degree on TAMK afterwards, that would theoretically be equivalent of master's degree from university. But in practice university-degrees are valued higher.
There is discord server for geeky stuff, if interested you can check it out. Google "Tampere Geek Society". You'll find a link. At least one result shows board game cafe Lategame's page with link to the server.
As said, there is a lot of student events because there are tens of thousands students in Tampere.
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u/readmeasyouare 8d ago
Just a heads up for you, these are things people say when they come to finland and think this is a paradise:
- Don't come to finland if you don't have a lot of money
- Work is really hard to get here
- You need an excellent level Finnish to survive
- Change your name to a Finnish name if you want better possibilities with people and work
Finnish people don't speak English, if you are in an area with people from outside of finland, they will speak Russian, ukrainian, swedish and so on. So you can be better of with the international students.
You could look up Kimi Räikkönen for the reference for the English how we speak it.
We are not social, we tend to be alone here. We love our private space and we love going home after school or work, we don't hangout at winter times so much or at all.
The study life is really different here, but we won't pay you anything for studying here, you are not from inside Eu, so you will be on your own.
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u/Goatmaster3000_ 8d ago
I mean, it's like a big city by finnish standards, the third biggest AFAIK. But we are a small country with low population density.
We definitely have nightlife lol it's student city, there's plenty of bars and multiple clubs and stuff.
I'm aware of two game / hobby stores: Puolen Kuun Pelit and Fantasiapelit, and multiple bars / cafes focused on games and stuff. I'm not a wargamer but my impression is that we have a fairly strong nerd scene.
I'm not super clued in on TAMK, but I would recommend looking further into what is available to TAMK students. Like, we also have Tampere University (TUNI), ie the actual university, and I'm not sure how much overlap there is in what courses a TAMK student can take and stuff.