Alumni day brought generations of chemical engineers together

The first Alumni day of the history of the School of Chemical Engineering was celebrated in the end of October. There were approximately 200 alumni and their avecs joining. The oldest alumni had started their studies already in 1950s. Different generations shared similar memories from first of May celebrations and group study projects. 

During the Alumni day the participants got a chance to explore the schools newest research projects and meet with the student association guilds. 

Many things have changed in Otaniemi during the years, but something that connects every graduate is that the field studies in chemical engineering offers a wide variety of opportunities for specialization during studies and gives the skillset for work life in Finland and abroad. 

Marko Fabritius graduated in 1994. He remembers with warmth the laboratory work during his studies, especially the ones where everyone worked together. After graduating Fabritius has worked with flue gas cleaning. 

“It’s never the way that you graduate to anything. You always need to be able to learn new things and adapt new skills in your job.” 

Kirsi-Maria Teppo graduated in 1999. After graduation her path lead abroad. She tells us that she also has spent a few first of May celebrations at Kaivopuisto after graduation. She moved to München to work with patent research. The choice was easy to make, because of the language skills that she has developed during her studies. 

“I wanted to leave, as I had learned languages so well here. I wanted to use them. It’s easy for Finns to go abroad, as all the material is in English. When you live abroad you notice, that other for people coming from other countries it’s a much bigger step to study in English, as their textbooks in school have been in their native language.”

Tuomo Tarvainen graduated in 2015 and his most precious memory from study life is his exchange period in Puerto Rico. After graduation his path lead him to become an entrepreneur and later food industry to his current position in Posti’s service business manager.