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My tips to balanced student life in Kuopio

Pracheta De

Writer: Pracheta De
Master’s Degree Programme: Biomedicine

“Namaste! Hello! Terve!” has become my usual greeting when I introduce myself at any event these days. It makes me feel great to embrace all the cultures around me and that is part of the reason why I came to study here in Finland.

Choosing to study Biomedicine at UEF, Kuopio, was one of the best decisions I’ve made as it gave me an opportunity to meet people from around the world, study in a fair education system, and have good work-life balance. Not only have I learned to live independently but I can also handle adversities better now.

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These strange Finnish habits surprised me – but now I’m in love with Finland

Thao Nguyen Le Phuoc (May)

Writer: Thao Nguyen Le Phuoc (May)
Master’s Degree Programme: Research Chemists

Hello everyone, I’m Thao Nguyen Le Phuoc (May) from Vietnam. I’m studying the first year in the Master’s degree programme for Research Chemists. This is my first time I am far away from home and living in another country. Therefore, it is easily understandable that everything was so interesting and strange to me. Sometimes, I was really shocked at the Finnish habits, which may not be found in my country. Read this blog post to find out what those strange things I noticed are.

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Enjoying unique Joensuu in my free time

Writer: Fernando Esteban
Master’s Degree Programme: European Forestry

Hello everyone, I am Fernando Esteban, an avid biker and an overall adventurous fellow, carrying out my master studies in Joensuu in the Master’s Degree Programme in European Forestry. The desire to spend time in nature led me to study forestry and to choose Joensuu to live, but it was only after arrival I realized the real scale of nature around and within the city.

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When “typical” does not really fit in your vocabulary – a week of studying at UEF

Writer: George-Cosmin Porușniuc
Master’s Degree Programme: Information Technology (IMPIT)

Hello everybody! I am George, a thirsty for knowledge 23 years old romanian computer science student. Upon reading that very first statement about me you might wonder: “well, isn’t there any better place out there in the world to quench you thirst for knowledge other than Finland?”. The answer to this previous question (that I actually got asked quite a few times by friends and relatives) is a very big and sincere “NO” and in the next few lines that I will share with you I will explain to you why this is the case.

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SMART APPS, SMART STUDENTS AND SMART UEF

The adoption of smart technologies enables the students’ life more effective, efficient, flexible and comfortable. University of Eastern Finland has set targets the transformation into smart university with all the smart tools, technologies and applications. It has already adopted a lot of techniques and technologies. Among them, one of the innovations is the use of smart apps such as frank, tuudo that can access all the related digital resources, making students smart.

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Seasonal depression, as BOOTs might come back? – NO way, it`s time to face to Nature!

I posted my last blog, when I took my winter BOOTS of, now I feel we sort of have to take those back, soon as first minuses just behind us….. to discover the beauty of this season we are facing for.

Autumn at Finland is one of my favorite season ever (though to be honest I’ll probably be saying the same about summer as soon as it comes around /if it rolls really with sun and hot…./). Sitting with a steaming cappuccino and a blanket by the beach of Kallavesi I’m just getting excited that we are finally facing to RUSKA, again.

Like, there are so many evoking things to do during autumn and if you are able to do at least some of them it might be be the best season ever. But be prepared, as you just blink and suddenly it’s -10 degrees and half meter high snowpacks arrive outside…..

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Saudade

“One more month.” That was all I could think about before we start our European Forestry Field Course for the whole month of May 2019. It was mixed emotions. Excitement. Stress. Happiness. Worry. Sadness. I couldn’t even decide which one made it to the top. I just remember feeling those things.

Almost one month has passed and it’s still hard for me to write our experiences during our field course. It is not because I hated it. It’s just that feeling of going back to it again. Which is nice but also sad. Because May 2019 is I think the last time that the whole group of MSc European Forestry 2019 would be complete. I know this should be a post about our time during the field course but I have decided that I want to write what MSc European Forestry meant for me and maybe to consider this as my letter to my friends who were with me during my whole study at the University of Eastern Finland.

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Change that I needed

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.

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In the middle of forest-where

“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.

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Different weather, new perspective

Finland the winter wonderland and magical sunset. It is really different from my country in weather and nature but actually it’s extremely  beautiful . I’m a 22 years old Egyptian girl from Pharos University in Alexandria, Egypt  and I have been in Finland for 4 months as pharmacy exchange student in University of Eastern Finland. It’s my first time to leave my city Alexandria for such a long period and I was so excited to see the snow for the first time.

I arrived to Kuopio in the first days of February, I was very surprised about how wonderful is the snow, it covered nearly everything. Then, I started to register my courses, so I had 4 courses and one lab work in the university . I remember my first day in university eating in Canthia with my helpful Russian tutee .

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