Gediminas Venckus from Lithuania spent a part of his summer in Zagreb. He decided to share his experiences with future IAESTE trainees, to encourage them to come to Croatia and have the summer of their lives.

 My employer was ZGOS d.o.o., a state- owned company responsible for municipal waste utilization in the City of Zagreb. My work in ZGOS was focused on acquisition with rehabilitation project of the Jakusevec landfill. Work area varied extensively, from civil engineering, to analysis of economical figures of the project.

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing everything. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million-dollar machines.

They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.

Sometimes the professional life seems, even to us students, like a rather uninviting place. Inter-office rivalry, constant stress of deadlines and long working hours are not an appealing prospect to idealistic young minds. Not every job, however, has to be like that. Jenni Katajamaki has found out that it can be a rewarding experience.

Her employer, a small architecture office called UOA Helena Paver Njirić, has given Jenni a good start to her career. Here's what she has to say about it.

Ever wondered how meteorologists predict the weather? Well, Bojana from Macedonia knows the secrets of the trade. She’s currently working in the State Meteorological Institute. Her work there is different than in her previous internships, where she worked in experimental labs. This time she's working with a new software, FORTRAN.

My responsibility is to make a project in FORTRAN. I still don't know how to use it, I'm learning it now, but it will be useful when I go home. Also, the director of the Institute Mr. Čačić called the director of the Macedonian Meteorological Institute and told him that I’m working here. So when I go home it’ll be easier to get a job.

His name is Kočmanovski, Martin Kočmanovski.

Location: Zagreb

Profession: Undercover student. He managed to gain access into one of Croatia’s most successful companies - Ericsson Nikola Tesla.

Mission: To improve the 3G mobile network. His efforts at the Development center of the company could in the near future bring us the most advanced wireless network technologies, like UMTS. This broadband technology not only enables voice and data transfer, but also the exchange of audio and video data at speeds up to 2Mbit/sec. This suggests new possibilities for learning and exchanging information, but is also the end to painfully slow internet connections. Martin, we are in your debt!

IAESTE Croatia has more news for our trainees! Every week we’ll publish an interview with some of our students, to bring you their experiences and encourage new trainees to come to Croatia.

For our first interview we’ve spoken to Agnieszka Zawadzka from Poland. This friendly young woman bravely agreed to be the first guinea pig in our project, for which we thank her