Salomea wrote:Oh that's really cool! Here, You also have music theory in music school, but at least in the four year path it's all so packed, that teachers I had just rushed from one topic to another, before You could really grasp the topic, so I don't think it can even inspire anyone That's why it's so cool, in your case and in Finland it seems to work much better!
Which makes me curious - if there a field of psychology of music? Also do You research traditional music and what is traditional/historical Finnish music?
It's cool that you've also been in music school!
What instrument did you had or are you still playing? But it's so sad that your courses have been so packed because most of the theory stuff require a lot time to understand, particularly aural and oral skills. When I was a kid at least I felt like we had enough time to do everything but nowadays the curriculum is really full because learning theory itself is not enough but we need to also teach improvisation and composing more and they take more time. Luckily it also work hand in hand - some students learn theoretical concepts better by playing and composing but some of them prefer writing and more "old-fashioned" methods. Well, every student is individual
I think it's possible to study music psychology in some universities. We have programs on at least music therapy and musicology and I suppose music psychology is part of them. I don't know much about it since I don't have it in my degree. It should we useful and interesting tho! My degree is super packed so it's not easy to take more "extra" courses but sometime in the future I'd like to study even the basics of it.
We study mainly Western classical music but there're other programs for global music, folk music and jazz music for example. But music theory department is focused on classical music, mostly from renaissance to contemporary music. I'll specialize in early music (from medieval to baroque) because I'm super into it! But overall we have different analyse courses, some focusing on classisism and romantic era, some on 20th and contemporary era. It depends on what composers the teachers have chosen and you can also suggest your own ideas what to write essays and presentation about. We've focused on the composers of the traditional canon, such as J.S. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, R. Schumann, Schönberg and Ligeti but nowadays our teachers talk also more about woman composers and on our latest analysis course we're focusing on contemporary composers and many of them have been Finns. But we don't focus on Finnish composers, we analyse many works of different composers and many of the 20th century are new to me. We have one history course about Finnish music tho and later we can choose which composers we'll study more.
I don't know much about Finnish music outside of classical music but one of our most famous Finnish composer is Jean Sibelius. Many Finnish composers were aware of what were the "trends" on music, studied abroad and tried different styles. Some other well-known Finnish composers are Kaija Saariaho, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Toivo Kuula. In our university there're also lots of composer students and their teachers are also composers.
Salomea wrote:So it is like in other teaching paths. Understandable... I'm glad You're getting paid! And that You got actual emplyment contract! All of mine practices were unpaid, and all, but one, were full time, and they really made You work all that time, so in hindsight it was not ok, so I'm glad You're in a better situation!
Oh it really sucks that many students need to work kinda full-time and unpaid
Some of my friends on different fields have been very tired because first they've needed to work at a practice place 8 hours unpaid and after that continue to "real" work to afford their studies. It's just crazy.
Salomea wrote:Thank You, though yours sound even more fascinating. Actually my experience was much different between B.A and M.Sc, since I studied in different countries with different attitudes and focus. B.A. was more historical in the approach, as it was more traditional, but it also packed a lot of classes, most things were lecture based with final exam (but they didn't care that much about the attentence, which is great) with focus on learning about every archaeological epoch/specialisation (paleolithic/neolithic/epypt/middle east/ancient greece/roman empire/bronze age/iron age/medieval/new world) and associated sciences (physical anthropology/ethnology/philosophy/archeozoology/archeobotany/geology/dendrochronology/numismatics/linguistics/ documentation and drawing, ect), plus two electives in second year. So a lot, a lot, and a lot in each lecture too and it was exhausting. Also was very normal to fail your exams at first attempt (which didn't mean You were out, justr try another time - most of people had to take geology exam about 3-5 times ).
I also had a lot of great lecturers (r.i.p.), but also there wasn't much in terms of labwork and new technologies.
On the other hand my masters were lab focus (but that was during the pandemic, so I didn't experience that, but lectures were mostly tech focus), like various analysis methods, petrgraphy, FTIR, microscophy, ect., statistics, which was cool, specially as they came from really in-the-know people. But the other courses were a mixed bag. Often super specific, like late medieval in Flanders, or Nabataean region during Roman Empire, that could be hard to put in wider perspective, if You didn't have such knowledge previously. The specialistions were different - antholopology, archeobotany, archeozoology, material culture and computer aplication. They were super focused on weekly readings and writings, which I would more appraciate if they were monthly (and is apparentely a problem now with the AI too), as well as on attendance.
Still it gave You good feeling for finding and jugding your sources, which I really, really appreciate! Stil, much less knowledge from the classes, a lot to do by Your own and I have no idea how anyone managed having a job...
Sorry, for such a long review, but I have no idea if there is a universal experience, or program in the field and I don't know which is better...
So how does it work for your field?
It's super interesting to hear about this because earlier I had no clue what's it like to study archeology!! I had no idea you had so many different subjects! Which did you find the most interesting? They sound super cool but I can imagine the exhaustion because the amount of new information is... crazy! We also read many theoretical articles weekly and I'm a really slow reader (and even slower because most of them are not in my mother tongue) but I've heard that in America they read much more in music theory departments and they don't even have enough time to read every book they've supposed to so I'm glad I study in Finland even though I often feel exhausted too. Because if the subject is interesting you really want to understand and learn everything but sometimes it's just not possible because the amount of articles and exercises is so large and the courses are so packed. But now it seems like no matter the field, we have the same problem with packed courses...
Your exams sound super stressful
We don't have exams (moslty, there're only a couple of teachers who still have them) but we do our weekly exercises in analysing, writing and "composing" in a specific composers or historical style and in the end of the courses we often have a larger presentation and a larger essay. Also we discuss about the articles weekly in the classes. In historical composing we have a portfolio of all the music we've written, analysis and essays about different styles. I'm super happy we don't have exams because I'd be completely freaked out
Did you also learn to read in example Egyptian hieroglyphs or analyse old paintings? I found out there're some scholars who have studied music from ancient Greece: they've re-constructed ancient instruments based on some they've found and also based on the paintings! And they've also somehow found out how they played the instruments because the positions of the musicians' fingers were so precisely painted and this is super interesting!
Btw it's so cool that you also had linguistics! Did you study any ancient languages deeper or more overall?
And I'm sad that the pandemic had such a large effect on your lab studies.
Salomea wrote:Oh really On what celebrations is it eaten? And I would prefer chocolate too!
My grandma and cousins like to eat it on Christmas
But I think it's just their own tradition
) https://www.numuki.com/game/kiko-s-carrot-adventure/
Kiko games were the best ones so I really recommend them! 
I should've gone to bed a couple of hours ago since I'm super tired but then I watched a few Winx episodes and here I'm again 
What do you think of them? 
Winx Club and winxclubonline have been a huge and important part of my childhood and they're still super important to me!!
It's just adorable because Kiko is my favorite pet! 