Veera Repka: It's easy to get immersed in the Otaniemi bubble

How did you end up at Aalto and what do you study?

I ended up at Aalto by accident. It's a joke in our family that you apply to study dentistry – and end up at Aalto. My older sister had the same path, and I also intended to come to Aalto just to spend a year off.

I studied bioinformation technology at Aalto during 2017-18 and applied for the third time to study dentistry in spring 2018. I got accepted, and in autumn 2018 I studied dentistry in Kuopio. But I had already been introduced to things at Aalto that I didn't even know existed, and I was more interested in bioinformation technology after all. I felt that being a clinician might not be for me. Therefore, in spring 2019 I continued my studies at Aalto.

It was a bit of an exciting and strange decision. But when I came back to Aalto, I felt relieved and good. I'm now studying my own field, and it's interesting.

An old Master of Studies in the Inkubio guild described bioinformation technology to be everything that can be collected from a human being. Someone has to design the methods and equipment, process the data collected and put it into an understandable format. You also have to be able to interpret the data and do further development to get new data and new applications.

How have you been involved in the Inkubio guild and AYY?

I have focused on event organisation. I was on the Guild Board in 2020 as Events Officer (IE), the following year as IE Chair in the Teekkari Section, the year after that as Vice Chair of Teekkari Section, and I was also involved in organising the main celebration of the 150th Teekkari anniversary.

From the events point of view, the Covid times were very interesting. If you normally have an annual clock when organising events, you had to throw it away in 2020 and even 2021. You just had to come up with something completely different. I’m now more relaxed about change. And when long-standing traditions and structures are scrapped for a while, innovative solutions can be found.

What does teekkari (a student of technology) education mean to you?

The tutors play a big role in inspiring and sharing tacit knowledge, the core of being a teekkari, the values, and all the things you can do at Aalto. As teekkari, you can choose your own thing and develop in it in a safe, yet inspiring environment. Being a teekkari is so many different things. You can even practice what it means to lead a team. In Otaniemi, opportunities are given, and choices are supported.

The KYN choir has just been successful in international competitions, can you tell us something about the experience?

The competitions were held in early November in Norrköping, Sweden. I'm familiar with preparing for competitions and going abroad, but these were my first competitions with the KYN choir.

The journey was inspiring. There are over 40 of us, and everyone organised their own schedules and made their own contributions during the preparations for the competition. We were able to concentrate fully on what we were there for - the training, the concerts, and the competitions. It was a great experience.

Can you describe the culture of the KYN choir?

The KYN Choir was founded as the student choir under the association for business students 40 years ago. The choir has evolved, and the singers have grown with the choir. Some of us are deep into the music, but the culture is open and accepting. You can see in all the choir members that they love the hobby and want to put their efforts into it.

As an association, the choir is largely run on a voluntary basis. And that's what all the great things are based on: a group of people who, out of their own enthusiasm, want to do something cool together. It can become teekkari culture, a choir, or whatever.

What is it like to walk in your shoes?

It's ironic that my shoes broke on the last day of the choir competition in Sweden. And my new shoes made huge cracks in my feet afterwards.

When I look back at my studies, at the beginning I wanted to experience a lot and do everything at once. But life is very crowded if you're at the same time trying to progress your studies, work, and still be excited about so many things. It’s not walking in my shoes, but instead running fast. Relatively recently, I’ve learned that nothing is more important than your own health and well-being.

If someone were to walk in my shoes in the same way at the beginning of the studies, I would hope that they would not try to achieve everything right away. You can give yourself time and work through things on your own.

I feel like I've lived three different student lives. Starting my studies in 2017-19 was the first stage. I was struggling and looking for my place. I left Aalto, came back, integrated, and got excited. Then came Covid, and with it the biggest tasks. It was weird, wonderful, and different.

And now it's a new era. I have no tasks and I have decided that school and work together can only take up a certain number of hours a week. It's been easy to let go and calm down my daily life, once I'd done everything I wanted to do as a volunteer. It’s much calmer in my shoes these days, even though my calendar is still full all the time. And if I was thrown out of Aalto today, I'd be happy with what I've done here.

What are your future plans?

Next spring I'm going on an exchange to Vienna. After the exchange I will start working on my thesis and then I will graduate. It will be exciting to see where I end up after graduation. It's nice not to have a pre-established, straightforward path. Although I am passionate and determined, I appreciate exploration. No step ever takes you backwards. I feel confident that life will carry me.

Now, alongside my studies, I work in a small consultancy, adesso. I ended up there because my friend, our guilds contact person from AYY at the time, was working there, and he told me about a summer job in spring 2022. Networking in Otaniemi can also be useful on the job market. However, my goal is to do a thesis within my own master's programme, biomedical engineering.

I have been a dental nurse for six years in a dental practice of my mother and aunt, both dentists. My long-term dream is to do work in the field of dental technology.