Alisa completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where she did a joint honours in International Relations & Politics and Linguistics. She enjoyed both subjects and after graduating knew that she wanted to study in Finland but felt that studying in English was the best option for her. After looking up different master’s programmes at the University of Helsinki, she ended up applying to the MA programme in English Studies.
Drawing inspiration from courses
As someone coming from a university in an English-speaking country, Alisa notes that she was surprised that English Studies at the University of Helsinki are split in two: the linguistics side and the literature side. “In Scotland, they are completely separate topics, so I had to adjust my course plans once I came to Finland. You can mix and match courses from both sides, so I ended up doing that”.
Several courses served as inspiration for Alisa’s thesis. The course Language Policy made her realize that she wanted to write more about the topic, and she also took a course called Language Attitudes, which she found enjoyable. For the thesis, Alisa explored research on non-native speakers in Finland. What ultimately inspired her were discussions on how difficult it can be for non-Finnish speakers to find employment in Finland, so her thesis title ended up being “Linguistic obstacles to working in Finland: Perspectives of Faculty of Arts graduates from outside the European Union”.
The highs and lows of the writing process
The completion of the MA thesis was a long process. She relied a lot on her supervisor, which made writing the thesis a less arduous journey. “I wanted a clear question and data collection”, she states. She found it helpful that she was able to ask her supervisor for help with challenges, such as coming up with a research question.
Alisa describes the thesis writing process as generally enjoyable. For her, the most stressful part was organising and conducting the interviews to collect data. However, her favourite part also ended up being the analysis of the interview data, where she could find patterns and evidence to support her arguments. She notes that she received a lot of help from the thesis seminar and encourages students to actively attend them.
After graduation
After graduating, Alisa got a Blue Book Traineeship at the European Commission. She spent five months in Brussels, where she worked for the Directorate General for Interpretation, which oversees all the interpretation that happens in the Commission. The unit she ended up in was training future interpreters, in other words, a lot of students who are still doing their Master’s in interpreting. This opportunity was very interesting for Alisa, and she learned a lot during her time there. Alisa describes the five months as intense, but highly recommends applying for EU internships after graduation, or even if you’re still at university — “they’re a lot of fun!”