Räkäposkella event and call for CBU FEE MSc programme

Hi up there,

The beginning of the winter seemed to be snowless and frostless, but recently it seems that Mother Nature takes its power back. It started to be around -20-30 C already last weekend and such kind of weather will still continue during this week. Today the students of University of Eastern Finland organized a crazy outdoor even is such bloody cold weather which is called “Räkäposkella”, even more crazy thing is last for 12 hours starting at 7 a.m. in the morning. So, you probably can imagine starting in the dark and finishing in the dark. There couple of rules in this skiing relay, the winner is a team with maximum number of laps counted by judges. Maximum number of team members is 12, however if you are really “sisu” you can even do 12 hours one-man-relay.

I just found out an interesting information which might be useful for some of you. A call for CBU Master’s Programme in Forestry and Environmental Engineering (FEE) is open. The call for applications for CBU FEE at the University of Eastern Finland will be still open until 16th March 2012. There will be CBU scholarships (500 EUR/month) available for the five best applicants in the application round 2012-2014. These scholarships are for the students who do not have any other scholarships of funding for their studies. Applicants do not need to apply for these scholarships separately. Please hurry up with your applications!

First forestry students were accepted to this programme in 2007 and this year the students will be chosen already 5^th time. Surprisingly the CBU FEE will offer students a scholarship first time starting from this year. Previously CBU provided only partial support for students, but this time the incredible opportunity is offered to the students.

Please distribute this information further to the potential applicants who can be interested. More details can be found on http://www.uef.fi/cbu-fee/news

Application call for CBU FEE Master's Programme

Hi up there,

The beginning of the winter seemed to be snowless and frostless, but recently it seems that Mother Nature takes its power back. It started to be around -20-30 already last weekend and such kind of weather will still continue during this week. Only couple of weeks left before a call for CBU Master’s Programme in Forestry and Environmental Engineering (FEE) will be open. The call for applications for CBU FEE at the University of Eastern Finland will be open from 1st February to 16th March 2012. There will be CBU scholarships (500 EUR/month) available for the five best applicants in the application round 2012-2014. These scholarships are for the students who do not have any other scholarships of funding for their studies. Applicants do not need to apply for these scholarships separately.

First forestry students were accepted to this programme in 2007 and this year the students will be chosen already 5^th time. Surprisingly the CBU FEE will offer students a scholarship first time starting from this year. Previously CBU provided only partial support for students, but this time the incredible opportunity is offered to the students.

Please distribute this information further to the potential applicants who can be interested. More details can be found on http://www.uef.fi/cbu-fee/news

CBU PhD seminar

Hello everyone,
I wish happy and successful year to all of you! In the mid of December last year CBU Doctoral students have had a seminar in Joensuu premises. Finally we had students from 3 different universities: University of Eastern Finland, University of Tampere and St.-Petersburg State Forest Technical University. We were 7 students from forestry, medicine, IT and social sciences. Each of participants prepared a presentation about 15 minutes on study progress and 10 minutes were given for questions and general discussion. It is already second meeting of CBU PhD students and most of us have made a headway and increased the expertise in the areas of study issues. General discussion at the end of the meeting was very fruitful and useful. The general concerns of the students regarding fundraising, guidance and support from CBU side were discussed. Personally, I think such kind of meetings offer to the students discuss the most relevant issues of study process, share the experience and knowledge.
Meanwhile during the autumn University of Forest Finland, School of Forest Sciences announced a call for 3-years PhD scholarship. At the end of the seminar GSForest coordinator announced the result of selection process. The 3-year PhD scholarship was granted to Anton Kuzmin who is writing his doctoral dissertation in the field of forest inventory. Congratulations!!!

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.