Upcoming CBU doctoral seminar

Hello everyone,

Time is flying fast and autumn semester is over soon, however there is still time to finalize the study process before Christmas and New Year holidays. CBU PhD students will also discuss study process and future plans next week in University of Eastern Finland, the gathering is in Joensuu. The meeting will be organized already second time; last year first CBU PhD meeting took place also in Joensuu premises. The seminar is part of international collaborative project. The project involves four Finnish and six Russian universities with the main aim to increase the Finnish-Russian cooperation in research and to train professionals. Eight doctoral students started the pilot programme last year. Five students from University of Eastern Finland, others from CBU partner university.

At the end of last year CBU announced first 3-years grand for doctoral students, similar grand was initiated this year with the main aim to support doctoral candidate and improve co-operation with Russian CBU Partner Universities.

I will come back here with the blog after seminar!

Self-financing of the studies

Hello everyone,

I guess many of you quite often asking yourself a question: how can I support myself during the study process in Finland? My own study experience showed that this question might be very relevant for many students, especially for those who are coming from abroad. In this blog I would like to give some tips where to look up for the opportunities to support you financially. Additionally it is also known fact that Finland is not very cheap country to live. Basically one option is to look for financial support for your studies from different foundations in Finland. I would suggest to start with the search engines in internet and I am pretty sure you will find at least several of them, however most of the foundations have fixed terms for accepting the application for consideration. So the next step is to write down all the potential foundation with the deadline terms. Please read carefully the conditions and requirements of the foundation while applying for money support, this is very crucial. The following links might be a starting point: Council of Finnish Foundation (www.saatiopalvelu.fi) or National Union of University Students in Finland (www.syl.fi).

Another option is to look for a part-time or even a full-time job in Finland. Surely it would be a great benefit if you already have the minimum knowledge of Finnish language, but even without it there are good chances to find your own niche in professional field. The internet again is the most common tool to look for the job possibilities, e.g. National Employment and Economic Development Office has a huge database of open vacancies at www.mol.fi. Besides that I found the www.monster.fi database even better due to the fact that you can type key words in search engine on the web page in English language. Finally all of us are living in pen society full of other media sources and I would personally suggest keeping an eye on newspaper. In addition to that you can contact the companies or organizations directly, use your own networks or your friends’ networks. Finally there are a lot of opportunities in the universities in on-going projects, so I would suggest giving a try. The opportunities are around us, the only thing which matters is the self-motivation and proactive position.

Success stories of CBU students

Hi there. I would like to start in new autumn semester my blog series with inspiring message about the success stories of students in CBU Forestry and Environmental Engineering Programme (FEE) and our graduates. Forestry programme itself in still young; however our students have already reached significant achievements in academic and professional careers. So here I will write a little bit not only about my classmates who were started same year in CBU, but also those students who have started before and after me.

Mahesh Thapaliya is originally comes from Nepal, he started in CBU FEE in 2008 and graduated from the programme in 2010. He wrote his MSc thesis under the title “Structure and growth analysis of reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) on mires”. After the graduation in CBU he continued to work in MTT in as a specialist being involved in many projects, where he first came as a trainee during his internship. Nowadays Mahesh working in Arbonaut Ltd. where he is also found himself as GIS application specialist, however he is planning to continue with PhD studies afterwards to challenge himself in research career.

Aliaksandr Holubeu comes from Belarus, jumped into CBU FEE in 2009, however before starting with CBU he was studying in Saint-Petersburg State Forest-Technical Academy and completed his Bachelor’s degree there. From the very beginning of his studies in CBU he was very interested in GIS-application related to forestry and he wanted to explore more of that in Joensuu. Luckily University of Eastern offers many GIS oriented courses. Aliaksandr had his applied period in industrial company UPM-Kymmene in Russia and continued there as GIS specialist after that. He is planning to write his MSc thesis about the implementation of GIS technology in forestry operations in real Russian conditions.

Anton Kuzmin comes from Russia, he started CBU in 2009. He graduated from Petrozavodsk State University before joining CBU FEE programme. From the beginning he was interested in different methods of forestry inventory, particularly in applications of mobile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the inventory purposes. Nevertheless for his applied period Anton chose to explore forest certification field and had his experience in one of the certification bodies in Russia, however in his MSc thesis shifted back to UAV-technology to test and implement some methods there, and further on he continued to study those methods in his PhD work at School of Forest Sciences and Forestry.

Isabel Muñoz comes from Spain, she joined CBU in 2010. Before coming to CBU she has had already study experience from Pieksämäki. Already from the beginning she found the trainee position in the project led by METLA “Wood harvesting and logistics in Russia – Focus on research and business opportunities” and had her internship there. Her work was mainly related to policy analysis both in Finland and Russia related to forest practices. Nowadays Isabel is working partly in Arbonaut Ltd. as GIS specialist and partly studying at CBU.

Maybe next CBU success story is yours, so please keep it in mind, because everything is possible and you just need to grab the opportunities.

3-years grant at Graduate School in Forest Sciences

After receiving seed scholarship for two months and preparing our study and research plan the students applied to their Graduate Schools in CBU partner universities. I applied to the Graduate School in Forest Sciences in University of Eastern Finland.

The University of Eastern Finland has announced 2 available positions for 3 years funding, one position was available at East Finland Graduate School in Computer Science and Engineering and 1 position at Graduate School in Forest Sciences. The grant was targeted to CBU graduates who are planning to make a PhD within a CBU Doctoral programme in the University of Eastern Finland in cooperation with CBU partner universities.

Nevertheless the call was open for students of all countries, so the tough competition was expected. The application deadline was 10^th of December 2010. The main requirement for each applicant was free application form including CV, PhD Research plan, PhD Study plan, statements from supervisors in CBU partner universities.

The funding situation is an entire part of the research process, and the opportunity to have sustainable funding for three years was surely attractive for many applicants, however at the same time cross-border element in the research was expected from each applicant. So, I tried my best to make a tailored research plan which will be in accordance with CBU requirements. As I am originally from Russia, I tried to reflect most actual information in the research plan related to Finnish-Russian Cross-Border cooperation in forestry sector.

It is well known fact that Finnish-Russian relationships in forest sector have started close cooperation since mid 60s of last century. During Soviet period Finland was one of the major importers of roundwood. The last decades in Russian forest sector has been facing many challenges, especially after collapse of Soviet Union. The most abrupt changes have happened in forest policy in recent Russia after adoption of Forest Code in 1997 and 2006; it consequently had impact on management system in Russian forests. The proposed topic by me was related to improvement of transparency of wood procurement from Russia to Finland.

Seed money scholarship for PhD students in CBU

I was lucky to be in the bunch of the M.Sc. graduates who were applying for the first call of CBU doctoral programme in November 2010. It was initiated for all interested PhD candidates who received CBU seed money as scholarship to initiate a PhD work. The money were given for two months in order to find the supervisor and agree upon the chosen topic, besides that the money were aimed to prepare research plan for future PhD research at the faculty. In my opinion the given financial was very important due the fact that CBU programme is aimed towards cross-border cooperation and for that reason the travelling abroad and meeting with supervisors from abroad, e.g. from Russia were required. In the bunch were 8 PhD students who were selected to first call of Doctoral Programme, six from them were originally from Russia, one from Poland and one from Bangladesh. The students were coming University of Eastern Finland, University of Tampere, Saint-Petersburg State Forest Technical Academy etc. Students were representing the public health, information and communication technology, international relationship and forestry and environmental engineering programmes. As a result of the preparation work we had to prepare research and study plan, also present a Power Point presentation describing the objectives and main steps of the project development. The CBU doctoral student seminar was held in Borealis building of the University of Eastern Finland on 11^th of November 2010. The students and coordinator of CBU doctoral programme agreed to undertake their studies in the graduate schools of CBU partner universities. At the seminar I presented the preliminary topic of my research related to the possibilities of applying MOTTI software in Russian conditions. This software was originally developed in Finland and used here in everyday forestry practices, however it is important to examine whereas the model is applicable to Russian conditions. Even though I stuck with that topic for a while I had to change the subject of my topic later on, I understood that it is quite common practice. The financial side of the research is important and I think that the idea to initiate seed money for PhD candidates to prepare high quality research plan and find suitable supervisor was very good idea. Besides that the call for this scholarship was publically available and was communicated through CBU central webpage, for that reason I would advise for potential PhD candidates to monitor this web resource.