After studying law in the UK and working for years in financial investigation, Nelda Biltauere decided to return closer to home and follow her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. Now a Cum Laude graduate from the Vilnius University’s Law Faculty‘s master‘s programme International and European Law, she shares her experience of studying in Vilnius, working full-time, and how the university’s flexibility, innovation, and support made it all possible.
Where and what did you study before? What was your experience before the Law Faculty?
Before coming to Vilnius and studying for this master’s degree, I obtained a bachelor’s degree in law at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. I then progressed to a science master’s degree in financial investigation. I decided to switch to a master’s in science because it was a brand new course and it seemed very exciting, the investigative part of it, which I have been doing professionally for the last decade.
However, due to my personal life circumstances, I had to move back, closer to home. After some time, I realized that I still wanted to do a master’s in law. It was my dream to become a lawyer when I was little, so I decided that I wanted to change my professional course, and therefore, I applied for this master’s in law degree.
I had heard that VU was the best university in Lithuania, and it was very famous and very well known. I tried and succeeded to be accepted, so here I am.
Have you been in Lithuania before starting to study here?
Yes, actually, I have been a couple of times. I had visited as a little girl with my parents, and it was more the side of Lithuania where I live now, which is Rokiškis, so pretty far away from Vilnius. It’s near the Latvian border, which works well for me since I’m from Latvia originally. It‘s very close to my home and family.
Later on in my life, I visited one of my friends in Vilnius. I really enjoyed the city and was pretty excited to come over here to study as well.
And how are you feeling here, studying at this university, in this faculty, and being in Vilnius? How‘s the atmosphere?
Actually, I feel like it’s very friendly. Opposite of what many people would say about the Baltic states – that we’re not overly friendly. I feel that we are. I felt really welcomed, very accepted here by fellow students, lecturers, and everyone I met.
I did an internship over the summer, which included working together with professionals at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Lithuania, everyone there was very nice as well. I‘d say the atmosphere definitely is welcoming, especially for young professionals and for students as well. There are a lot of opportunities for students to join projects and obtain jobs and internships.
Also, my boyfriend and I like to go on motorcycle trips, so last summer we drove around Lithuania by the territory and it took us a few days, but we met many wonderful people and just enjoyed the nature and countryside parts of Lithuania. It was beautiful. So overall, my experience in Lithuania, in Vilnius, at university, and overall, is very, very positive.
Have you tried any activities or opportunities provided by Vilnius University Law Faculty? For example, projects, competitions, and so on?
I’m not a huge participant in student union activities, if I’m being honest. But I did apply for an internship, which was organized by the Research Council of Lithuania. I got accepted as a practice student for a project involving personalized AI creation for the Supreme Court’s use. That was a great project led by Professor Rimantas Simaitis and I was glad to be a part of it. It completely changed my perception of the use of AI. Before, I was very skeptical about it, similar to other professors from our faculty.
Speaking about AI, that’s actually one of my biggest takeaways from university: I found that AI use was promoted quite a lot here compared to many other countries and universities. I believe it will change over time across all the universities, and they will accept AI use more.
At the Law Faculty, we trained a lot with AI, which, by the way, I had never used before. Another memorable part was Goda Strikaitė-Latušinskaja and Paulius Jurčys, faculty lecturers, who have created their own AI avatars, and we had an opportunity to try them ourselves. It was pretty cool. At that time, I started to question my perception of AI use.
You mentioned that you have a job, right?
Yes, I am currently a fraud researcher for a company based in London, operating globally. In simple terms, it’s a firm that helps ecommerce businesses to fight fraud. Prior to this role, I worked as a payments and fraud manager for eight years.
Your job is related to law, to legal topics, right? Was it difficult to study and work at the same time?
Well, that’s actually another positive thing about Vilnius University. I can’t talk on behalf of every course, but this course specifically was extremely flexible. We had quite a few remote lectures and presentations that we could do on Microsoft Teams. If we agreed with lecturers ahead of time that we want to do it from home, then we could all do it from home. Obviously, there were certain lectures that you had to attend in person.
The remote lectures made it easier to work and study at the same time as it saved time, especially the commute time from your home to the faculty or from work to the faculty. I believe that the amount of time we had to spend at the university studying was very manageable while working in a full-time job.
Could you tell three things about Vilnius University and the Law Faculty that will remain in your memory for a long time?
The flexibility would be one of the things, definitely. I think the lecturers are very understanding and provide options that suit students.
The other thing would be innovation. I really liked the modules around innovation and also that, we got to use AI. It‘s a very innovative university and I would be glad to come back to do another course!
Lastly, the opportunities. The opportunities Vilnius University provides for its students, whether that’s actually valued or not, are quite plentiful. We constantly got emails about job and internship offers. It’s very valuable, I think, in comparison to some bigger universities in other countries, that you get the opportunity to actually work. Not only that, but the university itself shares these offers with its students. You don’t get a lot of that abroad.
So, to sum it up, that would be flexibility, the opportunities, and the innovations that stood out for me as a student.