20th century thinking resulted in expulsion
“Milt Johnson, a third-year student, was expelled from the Department of English after drawing a parallel between Chaucer’s epic The Canterbury Tales and Dan Simmons’ science fiction novel Hyperion. Johnson regarded the frame narrative structure of Hyperion as strikingly similar to that of Chaucer’s magnum opus. However, as a dusty professor of British literature immediately pointed out, such modern thinking is strictly forbidden in the halls of the antiquated English Department. Indeed, the institution prizes itself for offering the students a stuffy, constipated and mind-numbingly unimaginative curriculum that focuses on out-of-date ideas put forth by people who categorically believed the world to be anything but sphere-shaped. Johnson was, according to reliable sources, expelled as an example of what happens to people who question this ‘tried-and-true’ dogma that has ‘survived untouched for the last 800 years’, as one anonymous staff member was glad to report.”

Student pregnancy feared to result in the birth of the Antichrist
“Early last Tuesday, the Vatican was alerted to the possible conception of the Antichrist. The call was made by a distraught staff member from the Department of Comparative Religion. Mandy Travesty, a first-year student at the department, became pregnant after a nocturnal romp with one Hugo Ehrnsvärd from the Helsinki School of Economics. This ‘seed of an unholy union,’ as the staff member reported, ‘can lead to nothing else but the birth of the biblical Man of Sin.’ Until now, inter-disciplinary unions had been effectively discouraged (often with promises of violence), which is why the Travesty-Ehrnsvärd child is anticipated with much terror indeed. Only a handful of cases where Finance and Arts students bond are known to mankind, but luckily there is no evidence of any offspring to have come from such unions (though Tommi Läntinen has been implicated). The editors would like to offer the following words of consolation to the anxious readers: Fear not. Since you’re reading this, you’re probably from the Faculty of Arts and thus doomed anyway.“

Link to part one

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'Tis the season to be anything but jolly

While lords are a-leaping at the Helsinki School of Economics and partridges are abundant in the Helsinki University of Technology, it is the Faculty of Arts of the Helsinki University that is left with nothing but soot and empty promises. Sitting at the Christmas table during the official University staff dinner, the professoriate of the Faculty of Arts is easily recognisable, since they are the only ones who eat only half of the food and pack the rest up their sleeves and in their pockets. As staff members from the other departments discuss where and when they’re leaving for the holidays, the Arts people sit quietly and wonder whether a cardboard roof could withstand the rapidly increasing snowfall outside. As the others joyously relate what presents they’ve bought for their loved ones, the Arts people are wondering where the busiest street corner for profitable begging can be found.

The students of the faculty are no better off. Since they spent their last euros on course books and the latest edition of Shakespeare’s complete works, all they can do now is eat the pages and wait for January. Having been disavowed by their families for taking up studies at the doomed faculty, the students have nowhere to look for monetary help or comfort. The student community offers little understanding, because scrounging around for scraps of a better life has planted the seeds of selfishness and animosity amongst the flock. It’s a dead end lifestyle, but it’s too late to turn back. Since the students are, by average, in debt more than they’ll ever accumulate, their only hope in life is to finish their studies and declare personal bankruptcy.

So as you prepare for the festivities and start glazing the ham, remember the good people at the Faculty of Arts. Remember that even though you might be well-off, these people have a one-way ticket to perdition. Light a candle and leave a saucer of milk outside for them.

And whatever you do, don’t wish a “Merry Christmas” to them unless you enjoy being clobbered to death by a second-hand dictionary in the hands of a rabid, strung-out, desolate and sickly student of the Faculty of Arts.

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Question Asked During History Of American Literature Lecture
“Professor Ben ‘Boring-Auring’ Auring was caught off guard after a student asked him a question during his infamous monologue in the history of American literature class. The very fact that someone was still awake after passing the lecture’s halfway mark was baffling enough, but when that someone decided to ask for clarification on a subject regarding Thoreau’s Walden, the Professor was struck silent with bewilderment. ‘Never in my day has anyone ever interrupted me during a lecture’, commented Prof. Auring after the disgruntling event. The student in question has been given an official warning and an extra dose of sleep medicine. The Faculty is concerned about the possible implications of this matter: ‘Next they’re going to come up to me and say that they want to learn something. I’m a professor of literature, not a miracle worker’, Auring fumed.”

Prospect Of Getting A Job Scares Soon-To-Be Graduates
“MA and BA degrees are more and more potent currency in landing a job with good pay and career prospects, claims the employment office. However, not everyone is happy about this, least of all the students who are getting nearer to finishing their degree. ‘I didn’t come to the Faculty of Arts so that I could get a job, quite the opposite!’ said a flustered French student, who’s graduating with an MA in May 2008. Her opinion was shared by a number of her fellow students. ‘Employment is not a traditional value of a humanities student. Our students graduate to become freeloaders and hermits; the bile our society uses to fertilise its very foundation’, commented the Dean. The Faculty is taking every precaution necessary to ensure the graduates’ transition into unemployment. A crisis hotline has also been established.”

England And France Still At War In The Faculty
“Even though the American and French Revolutionary Wars are two hundred years in the past, the fighting continues in the Faculty of Arts. The feud began when the new interdepartmental corridor was founded last month. The fight is ultimately over who claims control over the new space. However, a research faculty formed by members of both departments has also joined in the fight, claiming that they wish to separate from the larger departments and create a new coalition altogether. A new problem arose today, when the original occupants of the corridor (the Department of Native American Studies) started taking sides. The fighting is brutal and several text book -related injuries have been treated at the nearby health station.”

Dispute Over Big Donation To The Faculty Of Arts
“The late professor Harry Hancock’s trust fund has donated over 50,000 euros to the Faculty of Arts. Being used to poverty and scrounging around for cash, the faculty staff now faces a conundrum: should they use the money to buy new books, rent new space and maybe let the students use blank sheets of paper for a change, or should they just blow it all away in a crazy drinking binge. The students are unanimously in favour of the second motion. ‘We’re fine with second-hand writing paper and outdated study material. I hope the staff has a great time and won’t return for a while’, said the spokesperson of the student union. The debate among the staff is currently on whether to spend the money on hard spirits, hallucinogenic drugs, a trip to Disneyland or a combination of the three.”

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This image has absolutely nothing to do with the Faculty of Arts

Tired of having an encouraging student body coupled with a professional faculty staff help you along your path to your chosen degree?

Tired of waking up every morning with a smile on your face and being actually happy about going to school?

SO ARE WE!

At the Faculty of Arts you’ll find everything you’ve been looking for handed to you on a stained, wouldn’t-pass-as-silver-even-to-a-blind-man platter. Yes, definitely a platter of some kind.

We are the only department of the university that promises to meet your needs halfway and then fails to show up.

We encourage teamwork in all its forms as long as the result is finding the nearest exit.

The students and the staff share a special bond: they are often seen together at the employment office.

We offer you such courses as Theoretical Philosophy, English Philology, Intercultural Communication and many others with fancy names and absolutely no content to boot.

Our early lectures are an excellent way for men, too, to experience morning sickness.

We will teach you how to be bohemian and lofty — in other words just gay enough to leave people guessing.

Especially male students will enjoy our outdated study material over delicious meals cooked and served by the female students.

The Faculty building

You’ll find our beautiful faculty building by taking a left from the main campus road, another left past the homeless shelter, through the narrow aisle between the amateur theatre and the morgue, through the trapdoor in the cellar of the brothel into the sewers, taking the first right, climbing up the ladder into the abandoned warehouse, sneaking past the mafia thugs carrying bags of smack, running through the yard before the rabid guard dogs catch you and by regaining consciousness after the one-armed man with no teeth and a face so hideous it looks like the scrap book of a blind sculptor beats the crap out of you for barging into his house while he’s in the process of dancing naked and singing along to Frank Sinatra’s Love’s Been Good To Me.

To apply:

Come talk to the faculty staff at any time the employment office is open. Remember, we accept only almost everybody (multitaskers and overachievers don’t bother).

Si Hoc Legere Scis, Nimis Eruditionis Habes

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