We had a pleasure to host an enthusiastic 9th grader for two weeks. Below you see his fantastic report. Thank you Leo for your help, participation, and insightful comments during your stay!
Report of my TET-period
Author: Herold Leo
Recipient: Aalto University
Date: Friday, 13.11.2026
Event: TET-Period
Framework: School and education
Place: Aalto University, civil engineering department
Keywords: University, engineering, education.
Abstract
I had the opportunity to spend two weeks at Aalto University to complete my TET period, a work experience program that gives me something to put on my first CV. These past two weeks have been truly remarkable. I’ve learned a few existential truths about life.
While all burning is oxidation, not all oxidation is burning. Thus, while oxidizing water is possible, burning it is not.
The people at Aalto are very nice and supportive. Furthermore, the food in the cafeteria is unbelievably delicious and only costs €3.10. While that is more expensive than my school’s free lunch, it won’t completely drain my 15-digit bank account balance. Still, it is just enough to make each customer value their food a little bit more when they pay for it themselves.
And that coffee machine? That is the best thing in the whole complex. It offers free coffee whenever you want, exclusively for staff members—including me, even though I still got the student price for lunch.
The past two weeks have been very fascinating, though they would have been considerably less so if we removed every factor that made them fascinating. Then, we would end up with something completely different from a university
I praised the place for a reason, though we should still bring up all the facts for a balanced conclusion. First of all, the automated chalkboard mover on the left side of lecture hall R1 makes quite a loud noise when used. It sounds like someone needs to oil it soon. Speaking of lecture hall R1, I also noticed that the front row does not feature a writing desk like all the other rows do. This might make life harder for people sitting in the front, since they cannot take notes properly. Furthermore, some of the computers are getting very old; in my opinion, they should be replaced with newer ones. They are also running such an outdated version of Windows that it would be reasonable to update it.
Another point is that my school doesn’t even have a big enough budget to buy a net for our ping-pong table—let alone a 27 km-long underground particle accelerator. Meanwhile, Aalto has the budget to buy instruments that can easily cost half a million euros, yet we supposedly live in a country of “equality.”
Everyone tends to think that universities are places of hardcore studying and intense research. Well, not at Aalto. Aalto is a place where you can take a 40-minute coffee break right after a 40-minute lunch break, and then go play around with an FT-IR spectrometer while listening to Linkin Park. To me, universities are chill places without intense studying or constant evaluation, unlike middle school.
There hasn’t been a single person who wasn’t nice, though that is only from my perspective. I might have gotten some people really annoyed. For example, one poor professor whose lecture I was visiting couldn’t properly finish his coffee during the break. It felt like every time he was about to take a sip, I asked a question and he had to put his mug down to answer me. It seemed like everyone else was taking notes on what he said, while I was taking notes on what he didn’t say.
Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t too thrilled to see me again in the future. I also asked someone what would happen if we placed a tornado in the middle of a forest fire, and kept another person from properly doing his work because I needed constant IT support in Microsoft Excel and later in Google Sheets. Speaking of which, my rate of productivity didn’t quite delight my dear professor, Simo Hostikka, either. I want to clarify that I wasn’t unproductive on purpose; I just couldn’t figure out how to make those charts in Excel. For anyone who doesn’t understand the struggle, I was supposed to make eight charts with four lines each, and I managed to make one chart with two lines—which was my entire accomplishment for the day.
I’ve been so happy throughout nine of the days during this period. Nine, and what about that one day off? That was the day spent in Excel and Sheets.
However, that brings us to another existential truth I discovered during these two weeks that I’d like to share with you:
You should be thankful for every second you aren’t messing with Excel, because any second could theoretically be spent in Excel.
And I learned that the hard way. I’m offering you the chance to learn it the easy way.
I’ve met a lot of different people there—including someone who thinks rocket science is simple, for instance, and another person who has been in the top 0.001% of Linkin Park fans according to Spotify. That is truly an honorable achievement.
This period has made some relatively rare things possible for me, such as using an FT-IR spectrometer and a cone calorimeter at the age of 14.
What does fire safety engineering look like from the perspective of a 9 grader?
Most of the time, fire safety is just executing an overly dramatic protocol and evacuating the entire complex simply because someone forgot to take their bread out of the toaster. It is also about trying to figure out how to produce a polymer that doesn’t burn—and once it’s found, sticking it to the walls so a fire won’t spread. I played a definitive role in this life-saving work by using FT-IR spectroscopy, which measures the reflectance of different materials across given wavelengths.
As a field of science, fire safety isn’t very visible in my daily life because all the things engineers design blend subtly into “normal” life. Still, it is completely necessary because an oxygen atom has six valence electrons, which means it is constantly trying to bond with other elements. Once it finally forms two covalent bonds, it successfully reaches a full octet. Therefore, firefighters and fire safety engineers are basically working against oxygen’s aggressive urge to bond with everything else. It is fascinating how oxygen keeps us alive while simultaneously trying to kill us. Ultimately, fire safety engineering is just studying how oxygen reacts with other things.
Conclusions
Now, you might wonder: what was the best thing about Aalto? Well, there are actually two best things:
- The legendary coffee machine with unlimited coffee and hot chocolate (though it never fills your cup all the way…).
- Everything and everyone around the machine.
Thank-yous go to:
- Simo Hostikka, for hosting this period and not raging upon realizing how bad I am at Excel.
- The person who helped me use Excel, for also not raging upon realizing how bad I am at Excel.
- Simonas Kaskelevicious, for not raging when I misclicked “Clear All” in the FT-IR software a couple of times before saving the results.
- Shanmugasundaram Dakshanmurthy for not raging when I made wrong conclusions about the physical properties of the sample wood and after finding out that I reported unwanted speech to Simo Hostikka.
- Suvi Holmsted, for giving the most interesting organic chemistry lectures I’ve ever attended (I know it is her job, but thank you anyway).
- Sina Bazrpash, for sharing the fact that we cannot burn water.
- Jukka Seppälä, for still answering my questions even though I frequently interrupted his coffee breaks.
- Joonas Jaaranen, for patiently waiting, clearly explaining how different bridges work, and answering my hypothetical scenarios about them.
- Hermanni Komaro, who also put a considerable amount of effort into helping me write this report.
It has truly been a pleasure working with all of you.
