2019 is almost over now, and even if everyday student life doesn’t change a lot, in the wonderful world of the student organizations the beginning of spring semester is a big deal. It’s time to wrap up the “term” of our 2019 board, and let others continue with organizing for the social sciences internationals.
Looking back to the year is one of those weird time warps, where it both seems we just got started yesterday and time just flew by but also like January 2019 was ages ago as so much has happened within the last 12 months. Funnily enough, that’s exactly how I felt after my Erasmus a few years back. Must be something about internationality?
I’m proud to look back and see a successful year for the internationals and internationally minded: our main goals for the year were to provide a gateway for international students into the Finnish student culture and give Finnish students an opportunity to get to know the internationals by organizing, among other things, awesome Kuppala parties, Sitsit and excursions. The second big goal was to establish CISSI more strongly as a proper Valtsika organization, and we did that by arranging CISSI’s first ever Annual Ball to better connect with staff, alumni and fellow student organizations. Also, the required steps to establish CISSI as a subject organization in early 2020 have been taken.
Finally, I want to thank everybody involved with CISSI in 2019: our core board members who were in this from the very beginning; our deputy members who more often than not put the most hours in to make sure our events ran as smoothly as possible; the unofficial hangaround board members whose help was invaluable in expected and unexpected ways; the student actives and CISSI alumni who were there to guide us whenever their help was needed the most and my co-chair and secretary Olli, a skilled student active, great friend and a person who could be trusted to get things done.
Last thanks belong to the people we did this for: our members and the whole international community of Valtsika. Thank you, and see you again soon.