Writer: Gebhardt Kanime
I decided to apply for the ERASMUS program after hearing about it from a friend. As a 6th year medical student in Hungary, I could do part of my final year abroad as a traineeship through the program. From the list of partner universities available, I chose UEF as Finland was different from any place I had ever visited before. Also being from Namibia, Finland seemed like the opposite of my home country.
An interview with Professor David Morton
Preamble
Life turning towards normalcy, it seems, feels practically like a shake-up to the “new normal”… It was three years ago that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic. And now, even cities and countries with the strictest coronavirus precautions have been rolling back their restrictions for a while. Here, in the Middle of Knowhere, Kuopio, we, and Finland in general, were in fairly good shape during and after the pandemic. Therefore, we are truly happy to welcome back to the University of Eastern Finland an international one-day ERASMUS+ Meetup, to be held on the 7th of June at the Kuopio campus, Canthia building. We are also pleased that, after several years, Prof. David Morton from the University of Utah, School of Medicine (UUSOM), Salt Lake City, will be able to visit us and deliver a lecture again.
Writer: Tamara Kudaibergenova
My first impression upon arrival in Finland was a sense of calm and security. I got the impression that there everything was made for the sake of people, e.g. easy transportation, and reachable conveniences. Not only technical aspects, but also clean air, bright sun, green forests, blue lakes, and friendly people in Kuopio. When I asked about the direction, I should take to reach the shore of the lake, the answer was “in any direction.” Kuopio turned out to be a pearl city, surrounded by clear lakes.
Writer: Mina Poku-Agyemang
With all the excitement and expectations, leaving home (Africa), for the first time was like a good dream. I took all I thought I needed, including the warmest clothes I could get in Ghana, only for me to leave Accra with a temperature of about +28° Celsius to arrive in Joensuu at -12° Celsius. I had always known it was cold out here but I did not know it was this cold. It is funny and not funny at the same time.
Writer: Seira Duncan
In order to participate physically in a winter school (talvikoulu) to earn the remaining three credits necessary to complete my doctoral programme’s required 50, I boarded a plane to the Finnish capital. One of the first cultural references you run into at the airport is Tove Jansson’s Muumi. It’s popular among residents as well as in foreign countries including my home, Japan.
Writer: Seira Duncan
As doctoral researchers, we sometimes get carried away with our projects and lose sight of other areas in our lives. Occasionally, we need to tell ourselves that we are more than our doctorates.
While I research cultures in the Circumpolar North in the Social and Cultural Encounters programme, it is important for me to spend time exploring other cultures as well as (non-)academic interests. It is with this very attitude that I visited Italy – from its Alps to its more southerly coastal areas.
Continue reading “From the ambient Alps to parasol pines: a journey through cultural Italy”
Writer: Minju Kang
From the May of 2021, I have been working in the marketing team of University of Eastern Finland as a trainee. Since I worked at an admissions office in an international school before coming to Finland and worked closely with the marketing team there, I was interested in recruitment of students and promotion events for students. The jobs I have been doing in the marketing team are quite in line with the ones I did before, but the targeting age groups are different, and the scale of marketing is much bigger and wider here. The marketing team is under the Communications and relations department and, apart from my team, we have several different teams under the department such as design & video producing team, international affair team or translation team.
Writer: Szabolcs Felszeghy
Summers in Finland are all too short. Time is therefore precious, and one must strive to use the available time well. COVID-19 is still impacting our lives, as everything had ground to a halt and is now trying to start up again. Hence, there has never been a better time to dream up a bucket list of things to do than now. There certainly is something about the Finnish summer that just brings the joy of life to all of us, isn’t there? Like the all-encompassing LIGHT and the white NIGHTs! As SUMMER is now in full swing and we have begun to crawl out from our home offices at University of Eastern Finland, why don’t you open the door and let your imagination fly over FINLAND? Perhaps it is a good time for you to look for future COVID-19 safe activities for your BUCKET LIST in Northern Savonia?
So, the question is: if you do not have your own mökki around…
Continue reading “Finnish summers – short, but full of joy of life”
Writer: Chidchanoke Kasetpibal
Having observed a number of Finnish schools and lessons, I will to use this blog post as an introduction to the few more-to-come blog posts about my experiences as a teacher student, my opinions on Finnish schools and my attitudes towards Finnish educational system.
I would like to continue to tell about my experince of being a teacher student in Finland, and today I am proud to present you the 5 small, but in fact big things, I love most about Finnish schools.
Continue reading “Five small big things I like about Finnish schools”
Writer: Williane Bernardes
Master’s Degree Programme: Medical Physics
Greetings, fellow reader! I am Williane and I was born in Brazil about 26 years ago in a family whose background is a mix of European, Brazilian native and African heritage. You may be surprised but such thing is quite common in South America due to the historical context. Due to that fact, I have always been very curious about my ancestors’ origins and since most of them were Europeans, I decided to visit the continent. Doing an exchange would be the easiest way and in the end Finland was my chosen country since I also wanted to see snow for the first time. Fortunately, I could not have made a better choice and soon you will understand why!
My trip to Lapland on November 2017.
The total time I have been in Finland is around 3 years but divided in two periods. The total time I have been in Finland is around 3 years but divided in two periods. The first time was during my exchange in the University of Jyväskylä in 2014-2015 and the second time is still going on since I came back on 2017 with the intention of starting my master’s degree. Fortunately I got accepted in UEF and I have not left so far.
Continue reading “From clueless to accustomed – how to adapt yourself to Finnish culture”
