[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":15},["ShallowReactive",2],{"news-risto-parnapuu-receives-cybernetica-fellowship-at-university-of-tartu":3},{"articles":4},[5],{"documentId":6,"title":7,"slug":8,"createdAt":9,"publishingDate":10,"description":10,"content":11,"quote":10,"postAuthor":10,"thumbnail":10,"relatedProducts":10,"industry":10,"relatedPosts":12,"metaData":13},"ahvafuf7mr59onbtn1lrty0s","Risto Pärnapuu Receives Cybernetica Fellowship at University of Tartu","risto-parnapuu-receives-cybernetica-fellowship-at-university-of-tartu","2021-07-07T13:59:58.000Z",null,"Risto Pärnapuu, Computer Sciences Master’s programme student at the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science was announced as the recipient of the Cybernetica Fellowship today.\n\nCybernetica Fellowship, consisting of a 5000-euro scholarship and a paid internship at Cybernetica is the largest IT-fellowship in Estonia, giving a unique opportunity for students to participate in global research projects at one of the country’s leading R&D companies already during their studies.\n\n**Risto, you are currently a Master’s student, majoring in computer science. What triggered your interest in the field?**\n\nIn fact, I’ve been involved in computer science since highschool – I was already taking programming courses and participated in the Science School program (Teaduskool); I knew for sure I was going to be studying in Tartu after graduating high school. I felt I was exactly in the right place already during my first year, so I knew I had made the right decision. I took a gap year before starting my Masters’ studies to start working, but felt I still needed a more academic foundation, so I continued my studies.\n\n**You mentioned you were sure about choosing Tartu. Where are you from originally and why did you choose Tartu?**\n\nI am originally from Pärnu and when choosing the university, I visited both Tallinn and Tartu. Tartu felt like a better student town. Additionally, Tartu offered a more academic approach, which was more suitable for me – more mathematics and deeper theory.\n\n**How do you see your academic foundation applied in the future?**\n\nMy work today is also tied to research, apart from being a software engineer. After graduating, my plan is to move further into research and to broaden my role to a research engineer, which will enable more interesting projects for me to work on.\n\n**Do you already have a field in mind that you would like to focus on as a research engineer in the future?**\n\nWhen I started my Master’s studies, there were two fields that interested me – data science and cryptography. I understood pretty quickly that data science was a little bit too „soft“ for me, and I strongly preferred cryptography. I have been focusing on it quite a lot lately, and taken several courses in the field, especially the newer developments – for example, multi-party computation which I’m currently researching in my cryptography seminar.\n\n**Looks like currently you have found your calling – what about when you first started out in computer science? What was the most interesting field back then?**\n\nFor me, computer science has been a life-long interest, so when I started taking my first programming lessons, my future was pretty clear and computer science the only choice of study.\n\n**So you see your future in cryptography, perhaps as a cryptographer?**\n\nDefinitely my near future. It is more difficult to say what happens in some years, but right now, it is very interesting and offers a lot to learn.\n\n**For us at Cybernetica, science and research is a core pillar, and we see it as a very exciting field. It is sometimes challenging to popularise science amongst young people, though. Do you think this is changing or that they are still more drawn to the practical?**\n\nProbably right now the direction is more towards the practical education, but largely due to the fact that there are less companies that work with R&D. Secondly, I think when people choose IT, they are seldom informed of all the possibilities or maybe think they have to choose one or the other, science or programming.\n\n**You already have work experience as well, so you see it from a different perspective.**\n\nYes, I have almost four years of work experience in software engineering.\n\n**Was there something surprising for you when you started working, or perhaps something unexpected about working in IT?**\n\nIn fact, I started working with the aim of learning about working in IT – university is more academic so I wanted to get a better idea of how an IT-company works, it was a whole new world for me. I gained a lot of valuable experience in collaboration, especially between different roles and departments.\n\n**Could you share some advice from your own experience to current high school students, who are thinking about studying IT?**\n\nDefinitely focus on your studies at first – and focus on finding our whether it is a field you really want to pursue. It is often seen as the „cool“ field to study, with no actual understanding of what it entails. I would recommend trying to find out about that world already before starting with the studies, then there will be a much higher probablity of carrying out til the end. I would also recommend internships or even part-time work, to acquaint yourself more with the practical side of things.",[],{"metaTitle":14,"metaDescription":10,"shareImage":10},"Risto Pärnapuu receives our fellowship at UT",1788521289336]