Tell something about yourself

I am Eveliina, a 15-year-old student from music educational line of Puolala junior high school. I’m from Turku. I am very interested in biology and chemistry, and overall in researcher’s job profile.

Why did you want to come to our centre?  How did you find us?

Like I mentioned before, I am very interested in researcher’s job. I also have some connections that helped me get this traineeship and I am very thankful for that. Seeing how diverse this job could be and how big of a process doing research is, certainly strengthened my wish to do this sort of job in the future.

What expectations did you have of this traineeship and how was the reality?

I thought I would spend almost all my time in the laboratory but the work schedule greatly exceeded my expectations! Every day, and almost every hour of the day, I got to learn and do new things. It was nice to see that every day wasn’t exactly identical, which could be the case in other TET-training places. I was able to participate in an interesting research process, which was meaningful to me (it was my first time doing something like this so everything was exciting).

Based on what you learned during this traineeship, what skills do you think researchers need?

First that comes to mind is a desire to learn new things. I think it makes you really want to do this and have interest in the research topic. Otherwise, work could get boring. Of course, good concentration and listening skills are helpful. These five days had a lot of information packed in them. I will try to absorb what I learned the best I can.

What did you learn? Was there something surprising and unexpected?

Well, biochemistry was a completely new topic for me. Because we do not study this in junior high at all, almost everything I learned and did was new to me. One of the most surprising things was that I was actually familiar with some of the concepts this research dealt with. Anyway, especially I was positively surprised by the animal testing facility. I saw these animals living in good conditions and we talked about the importance of treating them well. Visiting the animal facility was also the most fun thing to do during this traineeship. I got to pet cute mice and rats, which I haven’t done ever before.

How do you feel now that the traineeship is over?

I feel great! I have that feeling I have done something useful and learned from that. I like this feeling. I learned many new things I could even use in my studies at junior high. I am very satisfied with my experience at the centre and would gladly continue for another week!

Eveliina’s schedule of the two first days: