Kirill Eliutin for International Captain 2024

Hakemukset / Applications 2023
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Hello! I’m Kirill, first year Master’s student, and I’m applying for the position of International Captain for the year 2024.

While it is my first year in TiK, I’ve already spent three years in Aalto studying Quantum Technology. My previous experience includes being an ISO in FK (once for QT students, and once for KV students), as well as being the event organizer in ARA (Aalto Russian-speaking Association), so I’m familiar with organizing the events and helping fuksis get on their wings to become teekkaris. The role of the International Captain is way more demanding and important, as you get to be responsible for more than 200 new students, but for the same reason it feels interesting for me, as organizing larger events and meeting so many people can become one of the best experiences of my life.

When I was a fuksi, it was always fun to meet my captains at some event and hangout with them. Having a familiar face to stick to is important for many, and I hope to become that face for the next year freshmen. I would also motivate the international students to come to non-international events - quite a lot of fun in Otaniemi happens in Finnish, so I will encourage neverminding the language barrier sometimes, as it is a great way to make new friends and experience more. This goes the other way as well: it would be great to encourage the Finnish-speaking fuksis to participate in the international events!

Speaking of potential events, I would first of all aim to organize more sitsits targeted at the international students. The sitsit is the format that suffers from language barrier the most, so it would be great to give the international students more donkey bridges and songs they can understand. Otherwise, I feel like the cultural diversity is a big strength of the international students, so an international movie night or a potluck can make a good event.

Finally, even though I’m applying alone, I feel like two International Captains are way better than one, so I would be happy to work in a pair with someone who is also enthusiastic about applying. Hit me up!
I would be happy to answer your questions on this forum or in telegram @kirs67

With international election HYPE!
Kirill

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Hello Kirill!

So cool that you decided to apply for the role of International Captain! I have a few questions for you:

In your application you mentioned that you would like to organize more sitsis targeted at international students. Do you feel like it would be beneficial to organize fuksisitsit separately from the finnish candidate fuksis as well?

Apart from the potential events, is there something else you think should be improved in the guild’s international fuksi activities? What has been done well already?

What kind of collaboration are you looking from the guild’s fuksi committee? This year, we have planned all the guild’s fuksi events together with the committee. Are you interested in planning and improving the events with the committee in future as well?

Do you have any ideas on how to develop the integration between finnish fuksis and international fuksis? In your opinion, is it easy enough as an international student to take part in the guild’s activities, or to become an active member of the guild? Is there something that you would like to be done to improve this matter? Is there something you could do to improve it?

Good luck for the election!

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Hello Noora!

It’s great that you ask about the Fuksisitsit - I thought about it, the idea to organize it separately definetely has its ups and downs. I don’t think separating participants based on them being international or domestic students is a good idea, we do not want to increase the divide between the two groups. Nevertheless, it is obvious that now Fuksisitsit can not fit everyone who wants to go, so some measures to increase the capacity can be thought of, for example, it can be organized it in two different places in the same time. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about the number of places in the Fuksisitsit this year, how many people tried to register, e.t.c., but I think it would be easier to have a specific proposal if we see those numbers.

I personally cannot see any outstanding issues for the international fuksis in the guild, but it would be interesting to hear others’ opinions on this matter. In my opinion a great work is being done maintaining the translation of varyous guild’s information sources, and I hope it would be continued in the future.

As many events are organized jointly for all the fuksis of the guild, I think it is a good idea for the International Captain to be part of the fuksi committee, and I definetely plan to participate in organizing the events together with the Fuksi Captains. As I said, it would be nice to see more of the Finnish-speaking fuksis on the international events as well, so opinions and possible help from the fuksi committe would also be great in those.

I think the language barrier can be quite a big obstacle for the international students who want to get involved in the guild, and it’s definitely not an issue that can just be solved by some administrative action. I think it is very important to indicate to the international students that language would not stop them from being part of some committe or somehow else volunteer for the guild. Another issue is that many international students are the exchanges, so they come here for only a semester/year and they don’t have so much time to get involved with the guild activities. It is important to find where can they fit into the picture, but I do not know yet.

In my opinion, one’s involvement in the guild usually starts from socializing during the beginning of the studies, so giving international and finnish fuksis more opportunities to meet each other and make connections would definetely make it easier for the internationals to get involved in the guild. Another “point of entry” into the guild activities is hanging out in the guild room, so I think encouraging the international students to come to the guildroom for studies/casual hangout is another way to help them socialize with other guild members and see what can they do in the guild.

I think I can personally impact this by promoting by talking with people who I see fit for some role and recommending them to apply. Of course it would be hard to know every of ~200 fuksis personally, but I hope I would know at least some of them to know how to encourage them to join the guild activities

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Hey Kirill! Great to see you are applying for the role of the International Captain!

You mentioned you want to make more sitsit targeted towards international students. Here is a quick list of the international sitsit that have been or will still be organized in Fall 2023 and are informed to the students in TiK.

  • Fuksisitsit (done half and half in FInnish and English)
  • International Airplane sitsit
  • SCI international slumber party sitsit
  • Grandmasitsit/Moominsitsit (they were mainly held in English)
  • International Grand Sitsit (Not organized by TiK and mainly for fuksis)

Quickly checking the calendar for Finnish sitsit for this Fall

  • TiK x KIK airplane sitsit
  • Halloween sitsit (some bridges were in English)
  • Fuksien juhlasitsit (Not organized by TiK and for fuksis only)
  • UFO sitsit
  • Algo sitsit (with students from Jyväskylä)
  • Song contest sitsit during Teekkari tradition week (Not organized by TiK)

I hope I am not forgetting any sitsit from the list… Do you think this amount of sitsit is good? One thing you should also remember is that you will have other duties as the International Captain. Don’t overwork yourself.

What do you think about other types of events? We planned a trip to Suomenlinna at the beginning of this Fall. It had to be cancelled due to lack of participants. Most likely the rain scared people away.

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Hi Daniel!
Thanks for bringing the data to the table - seems like I was wrong about the disproportionately of English sitsits - I didn’t count anything and was just basing it on how it felt for me, e.g. I didn’t account for the ones which have formal dresscode, and also I didn’t know e.g. about the marttasitsit. I’m glad to see there are a lot of sitsit opportunities for the international crowd, and I see that I might need to focus on improving in other areas if I get to be an International Captain.

Regarding other events, I think the trip to Suomenlinna was a nice idea, and it’s quite sad that it had to be cancelled. Other than Suomenlinna, Nuuksio and Porvoo can be good places nearby for a small trip. Also, I think an excursion through the center of Helsinki can be interesting an useful for the students who just came here, so I would like to organize it (not sure if something like this was done already this year).

I already mentioned movie nights and potlucks as good ideas for the events, and since I heard that cultural committee did similar events in the past, I think it might be organized in cooperation with them.

Unfortunately I don’t know much about the sports events and how easy it is for the international students to join. I think it would also be important to look into this kind of events, and, if I see that I can somehow improve the things there, it would be nice to cooperate on it with the sports committee