On a warm afternoon in February 2023, while working through a routine bug fix, I received an email that quietly set the next two years of my life in motion: I had been awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to pursue a joint master’s degree in data-intensive intelligent systems (EDISS). What followed was not just an academic program, but a journey across countries, disciplines, and new ways of thinking.

My experience began in Finland. The first year was an immersion into data science, machine learning, deep learning, and high-performance computing. The pace was demanding and the expectations extremely high. I spent long days moving between lectures, labs, and project meetings, learning not just the theory behind modern AI systems but how to collaborate across cultures and backgrounds. Presentations became routine and research became a bit less abstract.

You see, moving from a place where the average temperature was 30 degrees to giving presentations in –26 is not something I would have believed if I hadn’t lived it. Yet within those dark and cold winters of the north lies a culture of incredible resilience and determination; a term referred to as sisu in Finnish. Over time, friendships formed that made the environment feel less foreign, and the experience began to feel shared rather than solitary.

One of the defining aspects of Erasmus is the mobility. During the program, we moved between countries often - sometimes for coursework and sometimes simply to understand Europe beyond the classroom. Short trips across Central and Eastern Europe became markers of time passing with each city offering a different sense of history and pace.

After completing my first year, I spent the summer working with Fingletek in Finland, where I took on a reinforcement learning project focused on resource allocation for 5G network slicing. Applying reinforcement learning to real-world telecommunication systems was messy and challenging, but it deepened my understanding of what it means to translate theory into practice.

That same summer, I had the opportunity to attend several research schools across Europe. Being exposed to active research communities, different teaching styles, and unresolved questions in machine learning broadened my perspective on the field and helped spin up some interesting questions I aim to answer.

The second year of EDISS brought me to Spain. There, the focus shifted toward computer vision and robotics. The change in environment was immediate not just in climate and culture, but in how learning unfolded. Courses here emphasized mathematical foundations and system-level thinking, particularly in my favourite - reinforcement learning, where we traced algorithms from their earliest ideas to their modern formulations.

For my master’s thesis, I worked on adaptive planning methods for autonomous underwater vehicles, exploring a hybrid approach that combined global search with local optimization. It was a new research area for me, and balancing the uncertainty of research with structured coursework was one of the most demanding parts of the program. During this period, I also returned to Finland to work with Huawei’s machine learning team at the Helsinki Research Center, navigating the challenge of completing a thesis alongside an intensive industry work.

Spain also offered its own education beyond the classroom. From studying Gaudí’s architecture to exploring cities in Andalucía, I witnessed layers of Islamic history that added depth to my understanding of time and the world in general.

Our Erasmus journey concluded with graduation across two institutions, one in Finland and one in Spain. More than the distinctions or formal outcomes, what stayed with me was the process: learning to move between countries, disciplines, and expectations. Learning to begin again repeatedly. And learning to stay while moving.

These two years were less about academia or tech and more about transformation. It provided me the space to grow intellectually, the challenge to adapt constantly, and the rare opportunity to experience education as something truly international - both in structure and in spirit.

I closed this chapter with a poem I dedicated to my graduating class:

Ring, ring, ring

The clock springs up
Yet there is no spring, to lift me up
And I whisper: “five more, and I’ll get up”
Lest the darkness covers me whole

In the north came together a band
United, not by the force of a magic wand
For a year and two, so grand
That the memories will forever stand

In the snow we’d stroll,
To the classes, the labs and the meeting hall
And even after dying, we lived
To carry the stories we have to give

Through the lands of old we travelled
At the treasures of the past, we marveled
The ice of the Baltics, we’ve broken
inheritors of the Vikings - say yeah

Is that a biryani that I smell?
Or the jollof of someone I know?
Or the tacos from the new recipe that we tried?
And it tastes “so good” we declare
And the mouth says “chas ah gayi heh”

To Micaela and the name of everyone she learned
And the feedback, Hergys, we’ve learned
To Bogdan, whose quiet certainty is clear
And our Santa, whom we hold dear
And his gifts that kept coming, say cheers

Yksi, kaksi, and everyone I see
And to the Spanish squad, UIB
Claro, hermanos, I say si
And the senorita, our VIP

Look left, look right - hold those eyes sharp
So these moments never fade past
Intake 3 “we no dey carry last”