After having an interview with Alina Grădinaru, today the final version of the article was published in the Jurnalul de Est regional newspaper. With a little help from Google Translate, here is a translation of the article:
Marius Butuc, fresh graduate, employed at the University of Pisa, Italy
The days in which the young graduates from the Faculty of Computer Science were leaving to work in America or other foreign lands for Bill Gates seem to fade. With small but secure steps, the perspective of those who graduate the Faculty of Computer Science of Iasi changes, in favor of local business environment. Many of ITs from Iasi see the opportunity of working for a famous company, in a foreign country, as a chance to show foreigners that Romania is not inhabited only by gypsies who go there to steal, but also by really valuable people. Marius Butuc is one of them: left to Italy to work for the University of Pisa through the AIESEC Exchange Program. There he has to develop the website that presents the Masters offered by a department of the University of Pisa.
Although a member of AIESEC Iaşi from 2006, Marius Butuc preferred to begin by engaging more in internal projects and to postpone his departure. "For me, my membership to the OGX (Outgoing Exchange) department of AIESEC Iasi - which I obtained in November 2006 - represents first of all a great development experience! Being in the last year at the University, I knew I am one of those that were supposed to leave soon. Thus I had the opportunity to gain an international culture without even leaving the country and, furthermore, to study how to transform difficulties in learning opportunities, which now helps me a lot! However, I was impressed by both all the serious work opportunities that I could get through AIESEC, and the life as an AIESEC Iaşi member", mentions the graduate.
The offer to work for the University of Pisa came only two weeks before leaving, and it was the ideal opportunity to prove not only the Italian language skills, but also the academic knowledge gained during the Faculty. "First I was looking in the database for a job in Finland or in the Netherlands, but since I already knew how to speak Italian, when I found the description for this job, I thought that I'd love to be hired and to continue to keep the contact with the University environment and even more, to work in a prestigious University such as this, in Pisa", says Marius Butuc.
In Pisa for three weeks by now, the fresh graduate still has to work for the University’s site until the 15th of September when he will return in Romania to lecture at the National Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, RoCHI 2008. "My first plan was that at the end of this three months traineeship I would get back home and start a Master, and then go in a second Exchange through AIESEC. But after I had the first presentation in front of the directional staff, there already was an idea of extending my working-period here, so there is a small possibility that home-made plans are going to change”.
"My plan is to get back, to contribute to local development"
The idea of working for an institution of higher education in Italy hasn’t messed with Marius’ brain, and in the future doesn’t see himself working abroad because, he considers, if someone truly wants to evolve, he can do it in Romania too. What he does is only to get the chance to know other ways of thinking and acting in order to improve his overall vision. He believes in the professionalism of young people like him and also believes in the Academic Center in Iaşi, represented by two strong Faculties on the IT&C side. When it came to wages, Marius Butuc chose to receive a full salary, that is, he explains, "a salary that I manage myself, of this money paying also my food and rent. I said that this way I can learn better how to manage by myself... this being one of the objectives that I’ve set when I came here. "
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Once arrived in Italy, although this is the first time abroad, it didn’t took him much to accommodate to the people and the situation there. Starting with a particular set of expectations - part of them personal, while part of them gained during the training programs that he attended in AIESEC Iasi – most of them were surpassed, one by one. In his free time, Marius declares himself a tourist with a strong hunger for knowledge, one that does not leave home without his map and camera. In August, the fresh employee has a short vacation scheduled, when he wants to know Italy as much as possible, but he is likely to visit other AIESEC friends that are working in other countries too.
