Hello. My name is Sašo and I am, at the time of writing, a first-year Master’s student of Computer Science at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana. We have no explicit major-like structure, but we can mostly pick any subject we want to create a personalised study programme. I wanted to focus on machine learning, so those are the subjects I picked. My bachelor’s thesis was about parallel and distributed computing, so I have some of that in me too.

Other such boring details are found on my LinkedIn profile, the only other semi-interesting thing, that could apply to some readers, is that I’m currently (as in summer 2016) participating in a Google Summer of Code project with Orange. The timeline fits undescribably perfectly with Vulcanus for non-final-year students, ending one week before leaving for Japan. I’ll likely discuss that in a later post.

But enough about that. Why did I decide to apply to Vulcanus? Well, I kind of, sort of, really like Japan. Also anime and other popular forms of Japanese media, but try to suppress the uncontrollable urge to label me a weeaboo you’re likely feeling right now. In my first year at university, I read an article in a now-discontinued faculty student magazine about the programme from a previous participant’s perspective and, cliche as it is, instantly applied for it. Or I would have, if there wasn’t a requirement to be in the fourth year of your studies to even apply. I had to wait three more years to apply; but that didn’t mean I could do nothing to prepare. I read other blogs, went through the application documents quite a few times and did some other things to boost my chances to be accepted. After all, Vulcanus is quite a prestigious programme with a huge number of applicants. Then came November 2015 and it was time to apply, for real this time.

Several things happened and I was accepted. Imagine my joy. Things to do, paperwork to complete, people to meet. Everything was very exciting! Nearing my departure, it still is, but slowly packing for Japan may not interest most. Finally putting together this blag is fun. I hope you enjoy it!

I guess this is about it for the introduction. Contacting me shouldn’t be much of a problem, it’s the 21st century after all. You’re kindly invited to check this blag every once in a while to see if there’s something new.