Veera Uusitalo, SUD Alumni 2024
My academic journey started in 2021 in the SUD programme, and it has been a joyful jumble, as I tend to collect new interests and become easily excited about new topics. I feel lucky with the opportunities I have had so far, and glad that I have taken advantage of many of them. My interests are quite broad, and therefore SUD, and Tampere University, with its good free-choice study options, was a great fit. Alongside the SUD courses, I chose psychology as my free-choice studies and started learning French from scratch with the help of the Language Centre's courses. I also had an opportunity to go on an Erasmus+ exchange and spend an autumn semester in France, where I studied social sciences and political studies at Sciences Po Lille.
I have enjoyed being in international environments and learning from people from diverse cultures, which has been a significant part of my academic journey. I have especially enjoyed the practical opportunities for learning, such as Urban Labs and the field courses with students from Utrecht and Dublin, combined with the insightful academic guidance of our teachers.
When planning how to continue after finishing the bachelor's degree, I wanted to focus even further on environmental questions in my studies, and therefore, I applied to many studies in Sweden within the field of environmental sciences and sustainable development. I ended up in Linköping and started a master's degree called Science for Sustainable Development. I was lucky to start my studies there with my friend Aino, who studied in the SUD programme at the same time as me. I think that the studies have been even more rewarding with the opportunity to share the experience with her.
When it comes to the career path, the most important experiences so far have been my current internship and, before that, working as a research assistant in the SAGA-project. In autumn 2023, I was in France, and so I missed the thesis market that was organized in Tampere. However, a summary of the thesis market was posted online, and from there, I noticed the SAGA-project that focuses on sustainability transitions in different languages and contexts. It caught my eye because it involved collaboration with French partners, and at the time, I was interested in learning French. Besides, the questions that the SAGA-project focuses on sounded fascinating. Therefore, I asked Salla about opportunities to write my bachelor's thesis related to the project. Together, we came up with a plan to research the connections between Finnish sauna and urban sustainability. Thanks to the help of Salla, even more opportunities opened up. In addition to getting support from the SAGA team in writing my thesis, I got to participate in the project even more by getting some tasks as a research assistant. As a highlight, I participated in Sustainability Science Days 2024, where the SAGA team organized a workshop.
Currently, I am doing an internship in the Arctic Sustainability Lab at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø. We have an opportunity to do a 15- or 30-credit internship as part of the studies, and I am doing the longer one. I got the internship by directly contacting the leader of the research group and asking about internship opportunities. My work mostly focuses on conducting a scoping review about collaborative climate adaptation in the Arctic.
The SUD degree has given me a good basis for beginning my work in the field of sustainability. Being oriented into an interdisciplinary mindset from the beginning of my academic journey has been a great advantage. For example, my current internship is located in the Faculty of Arctic and Marine Biology - perhaps not the place where I first imagined finding myself when starting the studies in urban development. Yet, with the interdisciplinary background, I feel that I am in the right place and that I have not only a lot to learn, but also something to give. Sustainability and sustainability sciences require multiple perspectives, and therefore, I consider my background in social sciences useful in a workplace where many of my colleagues are biologists.
In addition, although it has not been the main focus or priority in my studies, getting some introduction to GIS and data visualization during the SUD programme has been useful. For example, now, during the internship, I have the opportunity to work on visualizing the results of the scoping review. At the same time, learning about the importance of different cultures and worldviews, like in the SAGA project, has been as valuable. For example, in my internship, I spend time thinking about successful climate adaptation efforts and how they relate to different knowledge systems. Finally, I think that studying with a fantastic group of students from different parts of the world in my bachelor's has made me much more ready to take up international opportunities.