On 14 March we celebrate Mother Tongue Day, which marks the birthday of Kristjan Jaak Peterson, one of the founding fathers of the Estonian poetic tradition. This day was first recognized as a national holiday in 1999. It is now celebrated not only in Estonia but in many Estonian Houses, schools, and universities all around the world.
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As many of you may or may not know, we had a UT Blog competition going on. We received six awesome blog posts from the most awesome students. They had the chance to write about anything they had a passion for which has a connection to the University of Tartu. They were allowed do it by themselves or with friends – it was totally up to them!
Source: Pixabay, edited by Karl
Dear Mr. NG,
Greetings from 2027!
Surprise! Welcome to the future. I know it’s hard to believe that you are reading a letter from the future, but it’s my final moment and the only chance to write back to 2018. Trust me, I understand how you are feeling right now, because I received an anonymous letter at the exact same time when I was on a semester break in Tartu in 2018.
In less than a week, the University of Tartu will hold its annual Open Doors Day on 28 Feb. Now, some type of visitation events aren’t exactly rare at schools or universities and usually play an important part in marketing for new students, but why exactly are we doing this? Why these types of events? Why not just an online lecture for each programme? Well, we can’t speak for everyone, but we can speak for the University of Tartu. So here goes.
Open Doors Day of UT: Photo: Andres Tennus / University of Tartu / 2017
I’ve taken part in the Garage48 Hardware & Arts (H&A) hackathon twice; the first time was in 2016. I had already heard of the hackathon before, but it was my boss who suggested I take part, as I was also working in an electronics design house in Tartu, where a substantial number of the workers were frequent hackers at Garage48. I registered as an engineer, as that was what I felt most at home doing.
H&A 2017, Photo: Saara-Nette Tõugjas
Kaur Alasoo, a young scientist who has defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge and is now working as a bioinformatics researcher at the University of Tartu, focused on the reasons for complicated genetic diseases and ways to avoid them in the future.
Kaur Alasoo and a fire truck. Credit: Randel Kreitsberg
This was the first time in my life to listen to a motivational speaker – Hugh Kearns, a psychologist and scientist who is trying to figure out why smart people procrastinate, and more importantly – how they can overcome that.
In the Young Scientist Club event that opened the BSSC2017, Hugh gave us an inspiring three-hour workshop, mostly revolving around the question: “How to start writing (down the new words)?”
Photo: Pixabay.com
