July 2019 - On the move

Day by day passed… All of them were the same. My life became like a broken radio where only one song was on repeat. They say when your life becomes a routine you should do something to change it and I did. My change was this Erasmus.

I decided very fast that I would like to go to some new place, where everything was unknown for me – streets, people, weather, culture… When I found out there was an open call for student exchange in Finland I knew it would be just the right choice for me. When I got a letter of acceptance for UEF I was asking myself if it was a mistake, because I was so happy and it still seemed too good to be real. In a couple of months I was already in airplane for the first time, travelling to Finland. I was not afraid, I felt like I am going home. Actually this was my home, for almost five months. I would say that decision to come here is the best in my life.

Continue reading “Change that I needed”

“Hello, my name is Daniela, I come from Slovakia and I study forestry at the UEF in Joensuu… “

After this kind of introduction, I usually get several reactions or questions like… “Aaaa Slovakia! Game of Thrones was made there?” or “Forestry? What you study in forestry? Trees?”, but also “So how is it to study forestry there? Is it better?”, especially from forestry students from different countries.

The first answer is always “you probably mean Slovenia, not Slovakia, but I am also not sure if GoT was made over there – so you probably mean Croatia.” And here the movie geography ends.

Forestry is a very wide science including for example genetics of plants (and trees), soil hydrology, ecology, forest silviculture and management, mechanization and techniques used in forest management, economics and even policy and information systems. Forestry therefore offers a variety of focuses for everyone who is interested in forests in their own way either practice or science oriented.

Continue reading “In the middle of forest-where”