“An EU career seemed so unreal to me when I was a teenager, living in a nice Central European countryside. Fortunately, reality proved me wrong. A few years after completing an Erasmus Mundus Master programme, I managed to pursue my EU career. First as a Blue Book trainee, then as an interimaire, and later as a contract agent; eventually, I successfully passed a specialised AD competition in 2022. Patience was the most important quality in this journey. Thanks to it, I am now (7 years after my Blue Book traineeship), a team leader in DG Agriculture and Rural Development, dealing with a flagship report – EU Agricultural Outlook. And it is exciting for me to know that this is just the beginning of my professional journey in the EU institutions!”