University of Helsinki
Arim Lee
2018 has been full of challenges for me and also for CISSI. When I stumbled into the CISSI board in December 2017, I was still a fresher. Unlike some of our board members, I had not had any educational background in Finland before my master’s program. I was still in a process of adapting to the new curriculum and the new student culture of University of Helsinki. Then, a new role and a new responsibility was added to my to-do list.
CISSI has been through a dramatic rebranding with the new board in the beginning of this year. The logo and website of the organization (yes, the pink and yellow one) is redesigned. The structure of the board is slightly reorganized. After the adoption of GDPR, our membership list is renewed. Amid the extensive transformation, professionalization has been the keyword in terms of running the organization. Bonding and cooperation with other student organizations has been a main way to boost awareness of CISSI in the student society and to build a bridge for international students to get involved into the Finnish student culture.
Being given a chance to write a blog about my experiences in CISSI, I looked back my past 10 months working as the Secretary of CISSI. I cannot emphasize enough how important, memorable and precious moments CISSI provided to me. Firstly, working for CISSI is a valuable work experience in Finland and this experience is also appreciated in the Finnish job market. I could earn concrete organizational skills such as communication, compromising, negotiation and project management. Secondly, I met friends from all over the world in and outside of CISSI. Working in a multicultural environment has been a priceless experience to raise my intercultural sensitivity. Thirdly, I gained deeper understanding of the Finnish tradition and culture. Without CISSI, I wouldn’t have been to any activity, sitsit and anniversary party from student organizations.
The latest example is ‘Fresher Adventure 2018’, the annual event for freshers. CISSI held its checkpoint in the Old Church Park (aka Plague Park, Ruttopuisto). Sanna Pajuvuo, Sanna Haavisto, Regina, Care and Melina joined a subcommittee with me to lead this event to happen successfully. CISSI became a stateonly for that day and ran immigration services. To become a citizen of CISSI participants were asked to fill out an application form full of silly and funny quizzes about some legal and political facts around the world. Then they had to get the final permission (= score) from a serious ‘officer.’ With this charade we wanted to highlight the bureaucracy that many international students face. In total, we welcomed 37 amazing teams with creative costumes at our checkpoint.
Like this, CISSI takes the half of my student life at University of Helsinki, actually, the fun part. During the remaining 2 months of my term, I hope that I could make nice memories together with our board members and that international and internationally-minded students could have lots of fun at CISSI’s upcoming events.