Our soon-to-be traditional trip in September for kicking off the academic year! There are fun team-building activities, a small walking tour around Tallinn's charming Old Town, a dinner buffet, but most importantly, a wonderful time with students and staff members of the programme.
by Anh Duong Nguyen (photos by Arthur Voit-Antal, Lenka Kalvodová and Mathias Creutz)
On a sunny Monday morning 18.9, over 80 LingDig members – staff and students – went on a day cruise to the charming capital city of Estonia, Tallinn. This trip marks the start of our academic year with new MA students, which has been gradually established as the prorgramme’s tradition after two more successful cruises in 2021 and 2022.
During the outbound trip, everybody gathered in a conference lounge and kicked off with a toast after two warm greetings from Mathias Creutz (LingDig programme director) and Lina Junctorius (a Cognitive Science student and LingDig student representative). Ice-breaking activities and LingDig quizzes followed, where we learnt some fun facts about the whole group and got to know fellow students and staff members during team challenges. People came from 24 countries and territories and had much to share about their own experience with linguistic diversity, though we shared some similarities as most had sufficient sleep the night before and were totally hyped about the upcoming mushroom season! Other takeaways included an indie German rock track that managed to fool many native German speakers onboard, and a couple of “scandalous” stories revealed by LingDig staff about their colleagues.
Our cruise arrived in Tallinn at 13.00 and we split into small groups to explore the city. The magnificent Old Town has several historical landmarks for visitors, and we were blessed with the passionate guidance from Tallinn experts in the group! Our group took the path to the infamous Viru Gate for its legends about the old man from Lake Ülemiste, and walked along rock trails to Tallin Town Hall and Square. Many others made their way to the Toompea Castle on the hill and enjoyed the excellent views from Kohtuotsa platform. The hidden gem neighborhood Kalajama was also fun to discover, with an industrial touch, colorful graffiti and the vibrant Telliskivi Creative City.
"I enjoyed the trip to Tallinn so much and there were lots of beautiful moments. I think the quiz part and the sightseeing in the old town were the most impressive ones for me. I haven’t heard such diversities of languages designed in songs which was brand new for me. Everyone was so active and the atmosphere was so relaxed during the game. I got to know more about our fellows, teachers and staffs in LingDig. Regarding to the viewing of the old town, I am appreciated that our friend Kärt who is from DH track, the native of Tallinn, led us to experience the charm of Tallinn. These have become my first memories at the beginning of my life in Finland." -- Lian Baiyi
Another highlight of this trip is a dinner buffet on the cruise back with a stunning sunset view from the deck. The cruise karaoke bar became a festive stage for many LingDig members, and the Thirsty Scholar Pub hosted our after-party until midnight! We shared the excitements and wonderful memories for the cruise, with eager anticipations of future get-togethers within and beyond academic settings.
In LingDig, there is a strong interest in field research methodology and practices to collect primary data, observations about typology, speech community, etc. MA students together with research groups have conducted several fieldwork within and beyond Europe. Read more about our previous field trips here!
The Meet the LT industry event is an annual occasion for students to casually connect with professionals and companies and discuss about career opportunities. You can learn more about the programme in previous years here.
A warm and cosy get-together before the Christmas Holiday. We look back at another year with friends and colleagues in the programme, enjoy the festive season with a glass of hot glögi.
The LingDig Student Conference is another tradition of our MA students to provide peer support for research. Every year in May, students from the University of Helsinki, within LingDig-related studies, gather to present their research process and result, network, and socialize. It is as multilingual as we make it: presentations can be in any language of choice. If you’d like to know more, you can read up all about upcoming schedules and previous conferences in the blog.
An academic hackathon to learn how Digital Humanities research would look like with collaboration between diverse disciplines and scholarship! For 10 consecutive days in late May - early June, students and researchers from all over the world gather in Helsinki, develop research projects using large-scale humanities data sets and approach them together in teams. While computer science and data science majors get to apply abstract knowlege to real-life complex problems, people in humanities and social sciences gain exposure and experience to research with digital tools and resources. Find out more about the hackathon here!