Grades from Corvinus

The grades from the last course from Corvinus were up today. My results are following:

- Decision methods 92/100, final grade A

- Decision making and negotiation strategies, 93/100, final grade A

- Global strategy and competitiveness, 95/100, final grade A

Obviously, I am very pleased with the results :) These should all be scaled as 5's at LUT scale. Does good for my average :)

Last exam in Corvinus and MITIM program

I can't believe it, but today I will have my last business exam during MITIM program. The whole thing has gone by so quickly! During the spring I still need to pass one Russian course and do the thesis, but otherwise my studies are done. Sweet.

Second exam in Budapest

Today I have my second exam at Corvinus. The topic is Global strategy and competitiveness. Overall the course was mediocre, many of the classes were extremely boring not only because of the teacher but also because of lots of student presentations which were mostly... well, not interesting.


I feel I am quite well prepared for the exam since the teacher gave us some topics beforehand. Good grade should not be that hard to achieve, but lets see how it goes.

Short update

Many things have happened since the last update. Sorry for not writing that often. Anyway, here is a quick recap:

• Wrote thesis proposal & commented one. Got good feedback from Olga about mine, still waiting to hear something from LUT & GSOM....
• Contacted FinPro today to ask whether they would be interested in doing collaboration about my thesis topic. I hope the answer is positive.
• Been doing presentations & groupworks. One more paper left to deliver as well as preparing one last presentation. It will be cooool :)
• Been totally neglecting Hungarian studies. My priorities have not been good. I will correct my behavior (this time for real).
• Bought a cool woollyhat :D Also bought gloves. Now maybe I need to buy another scarf....
• It has snowed a bit in Budapest. Today was the first day when I saw some snow in here. Apparently there has been some also in some other days but have melted before I have left the apartment.
• Watched El Clasico. HUUUUUUUUGE win for Barca! Probably one of the most convincing performances I've ever seen on a football pitch. Well, that and Milan's 3-0 thumping of ManU few years ago.
• I was a bit sick, but now its better.
• Exams are starting soon. My first one is already next Tuesday!
• I can believe its Christmas in about 3 weeks. I don't want to leave Hungary
• ....which reminds me that I need to book my tickets back here for New Years and January.

I guess that's about it.

Bratislava was cool, but it feels so good to be back in Budapest.

Midterm results from Corvinus

According to the midterm results at Corvinus I am a nerd. That's right - a nerd.


From decision making & negotiation strategies midterm I got a grade of 14.5/15 (I got an extra point for guessing my exact score from the midterm which was 13.5), which is obviously not a bad result. Apparently it was the second highest score of that class.


Decision methods-course midterm provided me with 30/30, which was a bit surprising to me since I thought I had screwed up the first question a bit. Apparently that was not the case.


So if you need to know something about decision-making, I guess I am the go-to guy for that :)

Thoughts about Finland

I saw a Hug a Finn-event in Facebook today. That is kind of cool, but I hope that not all the people that I know will go for that - there is really not that many Finns in here so I might have to "suffer" maaaany hugs :D 

But that is not what I wanted to talk about really. Living outside of Finland for the second time within a year has given me some more perspective to my dear native country. Let's start with a potentially shocking realization: I do not miss Finland at all. Seriously, there is nothing that I miss about Finland as a country. I do miss some people in there, like family and friends, but when it comes to the country I am surprisingly indifferent. I do not miss overpriced food and living expenses, I don't miss the gray winter and for sure I don't miss anything from Finnish tv, especially not BB.

Tv brings me to my next point - the language. Earlier today I met one other Finn at the university. He is in the same class than me, but we rarely talk. While chit-chatting during an elevator ride today I realized that it was the first time I spoke Finnish out loud in several weeks. I do read Finnish "news" almost daily, but speaking the language is not that frequent for me and I could say that I don't really miss speaking it that much either - living through English (and a bit of Hungarian) comes very naturally nowadays.

Salmiakki and ruisleipä have not come to mind either. Last week when I went to the movies I kinda wanted to buy some Finnish candy (they don't sell that kind of stuff here), but with that exception I haven't missed the food either. 

I am really hard pressed to come up with one thing that I do miss from Finland. Maybe the fact that houses and apartments can hold the heat well and that you don't have to operate a gas stove. 

I guess it is true that the longer you are away from Finland the less you want to go back. Even though of all this, Finland is not a bad country. It could be so much worse - it could be Sweden :D

Time flies

It is already November. I can't believe that this semester is already over the half point! It feels like I have just moved in, but according to the calendar I've been living here for 2.5 months already. That's just crazy.


Next week few very good friends of mine are coming here to visit me, which is great :) So this week I need to study as much as I can so I can spend next week hanging out. In this case studying means working on 2 group works, writing at least 5 pages on my thesis as well as studying Hungarian. When I say studying Hungarian I mean reading a book in Hungarian. No, I am not that advanced yet, but trying to raise the level using native materials.


On top of these things, life is really good and I do enjoy myself in here.

Small snippets from this week

This week in bulletpoints:

- Finally managed to get a reply from my thesis supervisor. Now I just need to write something :D

- I was in Szarvaskö on Saturday. There I visited an eating-festival of sorts :) Ate for example some blood, delicious lángos and drunk some amazing hot wine. But the best part was definitely the deer meat I got home from there. It was sooooooo gooooooood :P

- I've been in Black&White party (everybody dresses in b&/w).  The evening was cool, the next day wasn't...

- I was also at a delicious dinner in some Italian restaurant with approximately 12 other exchange students. Great food and company - no complaints there. Thanks for the invitation :)

What I haven't done this week: I have been neglecting my Hungarian studies too much. I feel bad about that. :( But will make it up, i promise.

Also it seems that I've developed some kind of habit for future oriented thinking-sessions on Sundays. There are just so many ideas flowing in my head (and some in writing) that pull me in several directions, many of them extremely interesting. Now just waiting for thoughts to settle in and that final a-ha -moment.

I am still alive

...and can not speak any Russian. Today I tried to remember how to say "My name is Joona" in Russian but I just could not remember it. 2 semesters with Russian well spent.... :D

HEUREKA!

So ok, here is the story: yesterday evening, I was tired, went to bed just after midnight. But for whatever reason, I just could not sleep. I was rolling around in bed for 4 hours or so (still checked the clock at 4:03) before falling asleep.


Soon the alarm rang after some 5 hours of sleep which of course was not enough. Despite that, I needed to get to the university.


The obvious consequence from the lack of sleep is that I have been tired the whole day. Kinda in a zombiesque state. Living, but not really.


After coming back home, I went on my usual "I wonder..."-state, where I end up watching videos or reading stuff just to open my mind to new things (ok, that is not the purpose of those, but often it leads to that). Then it hit me. It had nothing to do with what I was reading nor what I had learned during today. 


Suddenly, I knew what will be the core of my professional life from this point forward. I can't believe why I haven't realized this before, because it has been hanging in front of my nose the whole time.


I have found my mission.

Pleaaaase forgive me!

Dear Ms. Blog,


I have been mistreating you lately and I am sorry for that. I know that any amount of explanations will not ease the situation and you have the right to feel hurt because of my ignorance. However, I want to shed a little light about the happenings of last few weeks to you. Perhaps you will then find it easier to forgive me.


About two weeks ago I welcomed 3 of my MITIM-colleaques from Finland for a 5 day visit. I had lots of fun with them. We saw many of the cool places here in Budapest, such as Gellert hill, Szechenyi spa, Terror háza, Szimpla and so on. Going around the city for many days left me of course exhausted and trailing in my studies. I managed to catch on during the weekend and last week I have been again kinda busy with the schoolwork - we have had group meetings with the guys during the last 3 days and we've spent a lot of time on our presentation and case. Luckily, those are now ready and just need to be printed and delivered.


Besides the school work, my time has been spent on studying Hungarian by myself. I am making progress, but not quickly enough. I need to put more effort in producing text and especially SPEAKING. It will be Tarzan-language, but that step just needs to be taken.


Forgetting the schoolwork and other stuff like that, I have been just enjoying life here in Budapest. I really like this city and feel great in here. I am really happy. Of course, because I am a sort of evil mastermind, I have come up with some more ideas/things for the future to gain world domination. Perhaps I'll tell you more about those later.


To conclude, I am sorry that I have been ignoring you dear Ms. Blog. I will do my best not to abandon you in the future for long time periods. I hope you can forgive me.


With love,
Joona

Class schedule of this semester

Here is my class schedule during this semester. Not too bad I must say.

As you can see, there is two decision making courses. There is apparently some overlap, but not much. Based on the first classes all these courses will be cool. And what comes to the decision making stuff - my thesis is related to decision making, so these will provide the basis for me to build on.

Accomplishments of sick Saturday

At the moment I am a little bit sick. I woke up today at noon and since then I've felt kinda bad physically and feel like I never woke up mentally. However, since it would be just dumb to waste Saturday I've been torturing myself with some one hour of running (appr. 10 km). Apparently my running technique was so good that it needed to be filmed and broadcasted live. While I was running by the Danube, a camera helicopter really did film my running. Or perhaps some dudes who where driving their bikes like madmen on the roads. Nevertheless, I was in the forefront :D


I've also realized that I eat almost exactly 600 grams of cheese every week. This has happened now for 3 weeks running - I always run out of cheese on Saturday. Hence the visit to Tesco where I always seem to tire extra fast.


I also learned that it is impossible to find an umbrella from a clothing store from a mall. I checked P&B, H&M, Zara and few others but I couldn't find one to save my life. Oh well, then I'll just take the rain and soak.


My daily schedule has also included one lesson of Hungarian. I do understand better and better every day, but still am useless with the language. Hopefully in a few months the situation will be so much better.


At the moment a big part of us exchange students are at lake Balaton for some stupid fresh camp. Of course, I didn't go there since I've kinda seen those events. "Let's get to know each other!!!"-games etc shit, which of course means pointless name learning games, doing some useless tasks and just being forced to "have fun". No thanks. So, instead, I am most likely going to meet with some other exchange students who stayed in Budapest and spend some time with them. I am sure I will get to know more people better like this than by going to the camp. 

Introduction week starts

So, today I need to drag my ass to the uni since it's the first day of introduction week. Today they are going to tell about the uni and give some information packages etc. In the evening there is some kind of getting to know each other stuff - i.e. stupid name games, sitting in a ring and singing kumbaya. 


Later this week we'll have a pub crawl when we're gonna go from pub to pub. Also some sightseeing tours have been arranged, however I am not sure whether I'll go since I've already seen the places in January. Well, perhaps I'll go. Then on the weekend is the "biggest and most important event of the semester", some kind of exchange student camp at lake Balaton. I am 90% sure that I wont go there - the memories of St.Petes ice melting saturday are still vivid in my head. Nooooooooo thanks.

Starting to feel like home

Yeah, I am definitely beginning to settle to this apartment. Feeling good!

Moving again.

Yeeeyyyy, today I could move my stuff from my temporary apartment to my "semester-apartment". This place is huuuuuuge. Like 50-55 square meters that includes proper kitchen, a livingroom and a bedroom. Here is also a cable tv (although the tv itself is like 14 inches :D) which will be sweet when I want to do some listening comprehension on Hungarian. 

Earlier this week we went to lake Balaton, which is a really cool place. I'll post some pictures from there to facebook later on.

Otherwise I am very very tired. I haven't been able to sleep well in almost 3 weeks. That is exactly the same time when I haven't been doing any sports.. Not a coincidence I guess. I will definitely go and check out Margit island with my running shoes on the coming days.

First week in Hungary

Now I have been in Budapest for a week. Settling down here has gone well and I really like the vibe of this city. At the moment I am staying in my temporary apartment which is in a good location at Ráday utca. The apartment is cool and in a really nice building. And so far I haven't been able to burn the whole place down with the gas stove :D


Last Sunday we went to check out Sziget-festival which was really, really cool. The island location is perfect for this kind of festival and the feeling in there was relaxed. I went there without any expectations and was just curious what it was like. I saw for example Muse which was technically very good and sounded sweet, but somehow they didn't manage to excite me. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol :D The biggest surprise was by far a tent called Magic mirror which was kind of a rainbowish experience. The host, Diva Thomasz deserves a special mention.


Otherwise I've been just checking out the city and enjoying my time in here. I've also studied the language, but with that I am on a little bit frustrating level at the moment. I can understand some things, but way too few to really converse with someone. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I am able to have at least Tarzan-level conversations in Hungarian. That would be sweeeeeeeet.

Language tips for new MITIM students

I have no idea who is reading this blog or is there any readers at all. However, in the hope of some newly selected MITIM students read or see this post, I'd like to share some views on language studies.


For us, it was highly recommended that every non-russian native starts to study Russian in the beginning of this program. I did that. In the beginning I was really enthusiastic about it and felt like I should have started this a long time ago already. However, at this moment, almost one year after I started studying Russian I have come to a point where I know some, but am not Able to use it at all. Basically I just understand simple text or speech and thats it.


I know that for the next set of MITIMs the program structure will be different and you spend one year in Russia. So take these tips with a hint of salt.


So the tips:
- Think about your motivation to study the language. Are you really interested in the language or are you just studying it because it is recommended?
- Ask yourself are you willing to put extra effort in learning the language? In 1.5 (or 2) years of university language classes you will learn something, but not enough to be able to use the language professionally. To be able to use the language, you need to study by yourself as much as possible and especially try to start using the language actively as soon as possible, whether it is creating little stories by yourself or conversing with someone. 
- Also, can you imagine working in Russia or in a role that has a lot of exposure to Russian clients/partners? This is also from a cultural point of view: can you handle the local culture and especially its business culture?


Basically, if you answered "no" to these questions you might have to think whether another language would be better choice for you (other options are basically Spanish, German and French). I mean, if you think about the options:

1. You have the interest, motivation and are willing to put extra effort but do not see working in Russia or can not adjust to Russian culture, then why bother? Then you would learn a language but you basically would never be in a position where you would actually use it in real life (unless you have Russian friends).
2. You are motivated and can see yourself working in Russia, but are not willing to put extra effort to reach the required level. Then you will just be mediocre and wont benefit (professionally) from the language learning experience.
3. You are not interested in the language. Then you are just wasting your time and you should direct the efforts to another language.

So just think what are your goals before making decisions. Of course, Russian is recommended and highly necessary in Russia in everyday life, but the good thing is that Russians students (or people who know the language) are generally willing to help you out in more complicated stuff and you can easily learn the basic complementaries etc in order to survive.

I hope that i didn't discourage anyone from learning Russian with this post since that was not my point. Actually, you can replace the word "Russian" with any other language in the world and this should still be valid. Russian is a very useful language and is spoken by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. There are also career opportunities in Russia for foreigners who can speak the language and working in Russia might be the kickstart for an awesome career. However, my professional life will most likely not be Russia-related.

Farewell Lappeenranta.

I moved out of Lappeenranta today. The stay in there was a bit longer than intended, but now it is over. Budapest is calling in 2 weeks time, somehow I haven't yet realized that I'll be going there that soon. But definitely going there with enthusiasm :)

Oh and about the thesis project

...it has hit the first of many plateaus, but at least at the moment I have a better idea on how to scope it. Sitting down and just starting to work on it is needed. Maybe tomorrow. :)

Impressive levels of motivation

First of all, i must admit that summer is definitely not the best time of the year to study anything. Well, i guess that is clear to everybody. Anyway, at the moment i feel very motivated to study. Hungarian i mean. I bumped in to the blog of this Irish guy who sets very ambitious goals (example of the latest one) when learning languages. The list of languages that he knows already is very impressive and it seems that he has found good ways to study them. I salute to that.

Somehow reading stories like these can really motivate me. After all, the guy seems chipper, positive, down to earth, smart and hard working - many of the qualities that I see in myself too. Well, most of the time :D

So now i am studying very actively Hungarian, mostly vocabulary at the moment. After all, that is the basis to build conversations on. Of course I am trying to learn the grammar too, which really does have some similarities with Finnish. Now it is/would be important to try to actually use the language to lower the barrier of using it. Then maybe when I will land in Hungary in about 3.5 weeks time i am confident enough to start trying to speak it from the first day. Obviously, I will make a lot mistakes and will speak like a retard but thats the way to learn. First you need to learn how to fall before you can learn to walk :) And of course i have the benefit of having SOME relations with Hungarians already. At least they can get good laughs from my weak attempts :D

Thesis under way!

Finally I managed to pull myself together and started working on my thesis. Today I just made the basics, thought about the structure, the research questions and so on. If the basis is good the work will be easier.


One thing that I was amazed was the margins (according to LUT School of Business guidelines): top 3.5cm, left 5.0(!!!!!!), right 2.0cm and bottom 2.0cm. What on earth is that 5 cm doing in there??? Also the 3.5cm of top margin seems a bit too much... Well, at least filling a page with text is easy, it takes just 5 words.

Little update

Yesterday I booked my flights to Hungary for my exchange. I am flying there 14th of August, a healthy 3 weeks before the school starts. In that time it would be cool to see some other parts of Hungary besides Budapest. I think it can be arranged :)


Otherwise I am still procrastinating with starting the thesis process. Last couple of days I've been trying to deal with my iPhone replacement since it broke down (already months ago) and the operator/manufacturer is not going to give me a new one. Comparing electronics sucks.

Finnish weather explained

Link (in english and hungarian)

Thesis supervisor

This morning the whole class of MITIM '11 received an email from LUT stating our preliminary supervisors for our Master's thesis'. My supervisor wasn't a big surprise.

However, what really sucks is the timing of this email - now most of the professors are already on vacation and will be back early August. What this basically means is that a student who would want to start working on the thesis needs to wait until August before starting the writing process - otherwise there is a big possibility that the direction of the work will be off and a major part of the work done during the summer goes to waste. Which is obviously not cool at all.

Anyways, I will send email to my potential supervisor and try to arrange a meeting. If that can't be done I will take the risk and start working on the thesis already next week. During this summer I have lots of time, so it would be a waste not to use it for this project. Progress on the thesis means less stress about it later on - and more time to focus on studies and other activities during the fall.

Public defense for MITIM '10

The second year MITIM students have the public defense of their thesis's tomorrow at LUT. I'm planning to go to see at least a few of them so that I know what to expect in about one years time.

New structure for MITIM program

I just stumbled upon on the new structure of MITIM program, which applies to students starting their journey in MITIM next fall. It can be seen here. 


There are some changes in the courses, few are added and some are taken away. Examples of courses that wont exist to new students are Supply and Innovation management, Economics of innovation. Some new courses are Organizational behavior, Strategic management and Business processes management and information technologies.


In a way I like the new core courses, those are some of the topics that we did not cover in extent this year. Also, the structure seems to be a bit less messy and the topics more concrete in a way. Well, at least from course name point of view.... I am curious to hear/read about the experiences of new MITIM students on how those courses pan out.

Thesis project

Today I sent my thesis proposal to LUT, hoping to get an answer quite soon. I hope I will get to know my supervisors soon so I can discuss the topic with them and then start working on the thesis during the summer. I would have June and July at least to work on the thesis before I will go to Budapest for exchange period. I am not planning to do that much thesis-wise while in there, so I try to do as much as possible during the summer since I am not working either.


The topic is proposed is "Business partner selection in cross-border collaboration". More detailed research questions will be formulated later, but the idea would be to study how SMEs make decisions with who to partner. This includes also research on what are the success factors of partnerships and what kind of methods can be used to support those decisions.

Academic year over!!

The first academic year is now pretty much over for us. Yesterday we had thesis seminar which wasnt that bad actually. Some people have ideas what they are doing and some not. I guess I got a bit better view to my topic based on the comments and feedback. At the moment my topic is something like "Business partner selection in international expansion". The idea would be to investigate how SMEs make decisions with who to partner and what are the success factors in partnering. Also, I would be interested in finding out what kind of methods or tools can be used by SMEs on the selection. I will still have to think about it a bit more and go to talk with a possible supervisor at LUT.


We also had an exam on international high tech marketing, which was kinda similar to last years. I was well prepared and could have answered all the questions of the exam. Unfortunately for me, I slightly misread one of the essay questions and thus went off-topic. Luckily, it was worth only 10/100 points so I should not have ruined my chances of good grade because of that. I hope. 


Later in the evening we had a sauna + bbq session by the lake. That was by far the best party of this semester! It was fun and very good to see (almost) all the students of our class there together for the last(?) time before graduation next year. Somehow it was and is unreal that I wont see many of my friends live again this year, because they are leaving Finland for their internships and then going on exchange, some of them really far. I will miss them for sure.

Things to do this week

Tue - marketing 10-14, exam preparation for Growth (resit...), reading articles for marketing

Wed - marketing 10-14, exam, reading articles for marketing

Thu - marketing 10-14, exam preparation for marketing, writing a thesis proposal

Fri- research seminar 9-15, marketing exam, FREEEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

I seriously wonder how on earth I can find time for all this. No time for procrastination I guess..

Zen zen zen.

Our zeacher pronounzez zome zoundz whiz ztrong ruzzian axzent. Zen (then), zey (they) and zo on. Zounds a bit ridiculouz.

Bike ride

Today, thanks to a good idea by S and P (not salt and pepa) we went for a looooong bike ride. There was 9 of us taking the journey in the Lappeenranta region. The overall ride was something like 60-65km's which obviously resulted to some sore asses :D So, to overcome with that we needed to get some anesthetics - in the form of beer, vodka and grilled food. Yummy. Overall this was a very, very good day and I am very happy about all the happenings of today.


Special thanks to H for the lovely chicken and rice. And congrats to K for her master thesis topic :)

Phew, that was an exhausting day!

So this morning I had first exam of the day - Quantitative methods of business research. Yes kids, it is as boring as it sounds, if not even more boring. At that time I was still asleep I guess which did not make the exam easier at all. Overall, I found it kinda difficult since success in that exam required so much detailed and menial knowledge about things that I am not enthusiastic about. Expecting something like 30 +- 5 points out of 50 from that exam. Not the best of grades then... Maybe 2 or 3.


After that exam I had the joy of beginning to prepare for the afternoon exam. Or continue, I read the material once yesterday. The topic was economics of innovation and actually it is not as shitty as it might seem to be. Not the most interesting topic either. We finished doing our "tips/model answers" to the exam 1 hour before it which was way too late to learn and digest it all. Well, could have been worse I guess. 


Speaking about worse, the exam was amazingly exhausting!! 3 professors, 3 sets of questions, 3 answer papers and 3 hours to complete it. And it was not like the question sets were short or easy, no no no no. I would say that each of them was like 75% of a normal exam (2 sets included 3 essay questions, one had 15 smaller ones). And compared to previous exams, those were a bit wider in content, well at least some of them. And previously this course was worth more credits.... Anyhow, that is now done and I guess it went okay. Awaiting something like 80-90 points out of 100.


Now some rest and ice hockey :)

Yeah baby yeah!

Finland managed to win USA 3-2 in Hockey WC. So the tournament continues..

SHOT! STOP SPAMMING ON YOUR BLOG!!! 15 posts within 24 hours is more than enough :D MORE THAN ENOUGH!

Finance exam over

The exam was surprisingly not difficult :D I can't say it was easy, but definitely not that difficult that I feared. I am awaiting 60-70 points out of 80.

Lets see how it actually went when we will get the results at some point in June.

IIIIIIIIIIIKS, it's finance!

My first ever finance exam is today. I have no clue how well I am prepared, which is kind of a worry. I know that I could have put more effort on studying yesterday,  but overall I think that I understand the main topics. I think :) 

I live in this cool company called Finland

....the lecturer keeps on referring to countries as companies. Annoys me to no end.

Exams, exams, exams..

Next week I have 3 exams - International Finance Management (IFM) on Wednesday, Quantitative methods of business research (QMBR) and Economics of innovation (EoI) on Friday. I have surprised myself by already reading through the material for IFM during this weekend. Well, the lecture slides... There is still 750 page book waiting its turn.


Luckily Thursday is national holiday so I can dedicate that for studying. From Mon to Wed we have a new course, International high technology marketing, which requires quite much reading it seems. We have like 3-6 articles per one lecture... And since the lectures are daily, it means that burying your head to articles is needed every day. Does not make my exam preparations easier at all.

That's what she said!

The flights have been booked to Finland. Best news in a long long time!

Yey, being a good nerd again!

We had the presentations for the consulting project today. The best team was awarded and I am very happy to say that our team won!!!! Very happy about that, but seriously I kinda knew to expect that since we had a great group and we did very good job on this.


Out of these graded and rewarded presentations during this academic year (Consulting project and Knowledge management) I have been in a winning team both times. Thank you all the smart people I've been working with. Also, thanks Shot.

Consulting project done

Consulting group "A-fish-in-sea Ltd" gave the presentation about GISdim3 today. Really pleased with our work and presentation as a whole. Go us! Also the jury and the company liked what we came up with.


I am expecting a very very good grade from this :)

Busy busy week coming up

Monday: Russian exam
Tuesday: Consulting project final presentation + meeting (8 hours)
Wednesday: Supply and innovation management exam
Thursday: Economics of innovation classes + Spanish exam
Friday: Economics of innovation classes (7-8 hours) + deadline for QBR assignment


Will be so so shitty.

WAPPU

So it is Wappu today. Well, in Lappeenranta it has been Wappu for 2 weeks already. For me it is so weird, since I have basically not attended any of the events except for Wipellys and that wasn't official Wipellys either.


I hate it that we dont have the overalls - I feel like not attending these events because of that. I should have brought my blue ones from home with me....


Glada och klara vappen för alla!

Corporate visit at KONE

On Wednesday we had a quick 2 hour visit at KONE corporation in Espoo. So in the morning around 7 o'clock we rushed in to uni to jump on our bus which took us to Espoo. We were there around 11 o'clock and our return journey started at 1. It was a bit funny to travel like 3,5 hours to one direction just for such a quick visit, especially when it wasn't THAT interesting or useful. Oh well, it was still a nice trip. At least had some time to socialize with student friends :)

No, not lucky at all

Yup, so I have received few of these "thank you for your interest towards our company, but we have decided to continue our process with other candidates"-emails this week. Not a big surprise in a way, since it has been way too long from the previous contact. Like about 2 months when I sent the applications.


This is just a bit frustrating (yes, Shot, I am frustrated). The funny thing is that I just got that kind of email also from KONE corporation. Guess who are going to KONE tomorrow for a company visit?.... :D On some level I feel like showing a part of my personality with some t-shirt saying like "I need an internship" with the highlights of my CV also printed in the shirt. Oh well.

Do I feel lucky?

No. At least when it comes to internships this summer. I guess the best possibility of getting something is at LUT as a research assistant. The other leads feel kinda cold at the moment... I kinda knew to expect this, but still the situation sucks. Oh well. Life is a b*tch sometimes.

Consulting project interview v.2.0

Our group went to Mikkeli today to do the interview for consulting project. Overall it was good and we got good information and thoughts. Maybe not from the guys but based on the things that they said. 

I think we will have good suggestions to them in few weeks time :) And of course amazing presentation!

Oopsidaisie.

During the last 4 weeks I have been on 14 flights. Oops. I bet that my carbon footprint is not that ecologic at the moment....

Been in Mexico, now in Finland for a while.

I managed to get back to Finland alive and somehow intact. Now suffering from serious jetlag and just trying to stay awake for a few more hours before going to sleep to turn my rhythm quickly. Mexico-report coming a bit later.

Lots of school work done

Because of my trip I have had to do a lot of work during recent weeks. I have finished several assignments waaaayyyy before their deadlines - some even one month in advance. I just wanted to get rid of as much of these things before going since I will have some intense reading later in the spring because of traveling I will miss a few exams. Thus I need to do those in May which means quite a congested schedule.


Anyways. The projects are now done for me and I can fully concentrate on relaxing in Mexico! Ghihi! 

Going to Mexico!!!

So okay, here is the deal. Tomorrow I am going to leave Lappeenranta for Helsinki. On Friday morning I will fly from there to Mexico! Wooohoooooo! I can't express how excited I am about going there, for many many reasons. Well, the biggest reason comes from Europe :) Ghihi.

Anyways, really looking forward to that adventure. Going to a lot of goooood fooooood, see amazing places and meet complete idiots :D (idiots in a good way). What else can you wish from a trip? I have almost finished packing, the apartment is clean and mentally I am already on my way. Camera is charged and ready to document the trip :)

This all means that this blog will most likely be very very quiet during the next couple of weeks. Try to survive :D

Finance project

What a nice way to spend a saturday. Not.


We were working on our finance project today. Went all the way to uni to spend some quality time with figures, investments, eurocurrencies and eurobonds. Not to mention interest rates and direct foreign investments. So yeah, so far my day has been.. boring.

Exchange on third semester.

First of all: WOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I got the place that I wanted and I am now heading to lovely Budapest next fall for 4 months :) :) I am really happy for several, several reasons. Ghihi.


I am going to study in Corvinus unless something dramatic happens. I will go there through GSOM, but it should be okay and certain. Anyhow, I also have a place to Budapest through LUT so I am definitely going to end up there. Can't wait for next fall, I know it will be so freaking much fun!! I know I will come back from there many experiences richer :)

Evening activities of past few days

On Wednesday we had a chillin' event with MITIM students. Students from both MITIM '10 and '11 were invited and about 15, maybe 20, showed up. It was okay fun, played some games and just chilled. Some left early and some continued till the late hours in the nearby pub.


Then yesterday I attended with few fellow students in "Dressing up for business"-event arranged by Enklaavi (Business students guild) and Kekäle (Clothing store). I didn't have that much expectations about the whole event so I was really pleased when it turned out to be interesting and informative. Well done sirs. Later that night I also tasted the very first pizza from our fellow student. He has his own restaurant in Lappeenranta :)

Saving future students from stupid examples..

...Sometimes I just want to establish a company and make it huuuuuuuuuuge international success and make sure that it has nothing to do with mobile phone industry. I am very annoyed by the fact, that in basically every class when we have some examples, they are always about Nokia or mobile phones in general. Okay, there have been few exceptions to this rule, but mainly things have revolved around these topics.


Annoying like hell.


Okay, lets admit that I wouldn't mind if someone else beats me to it and another Finnish company becomes huge success. But please, SAVE THE POOR STUDENTS OF TOMORROW FROM THESE AWFUL, AWFUL MOBILE PHONE DISCUSSIONS!!

Consulting project interview

Today our group met the representative of our consulting project group. Overall the case seems to be really interesting in way, since the company is really, really small but the case is real. Because the size of the company is so petit, there is a good chance for us to contribute and really make a difference! Which is cool. The owners really want to hear our ideas and no doubt are at least seriously considering our suggestions. That is not something what would happen if the case was done to some multinational company...


We got a decent amount of information about the company and now we have better picture of how to approach this whole case. We have good idea what tools are we going to use and what is our aim of the whole project. YEI!

Thank you for your interest...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. That time of the year again when there is endless amounts of these letters in my mailbox. Somehow the figures do not give me that much optimism for the other applications either:

• At Fortum, they have received over 6000 applications for maybe 20-30 places.
• At Vaisala GiantLeap Program they received about 740 applications for 20 places max. 

From those figures it is easy to see that there is a bit of a competition going on for the few open internships/summer jobs that are out there. When you think about those kind of numbers logically, it means that the companies just can not read every application and they sure do not do that. Then the question arises that how do they narrow those applications down? I have no idea. Maybe they look for some magic words, maybe by throwing a dice or maybe utilizing pigeon feathers and cat whiskars in the process.

Or maybe I just suck at writing applications.

Spending Saturday in a meaningful way

Instead of studying I have been playing around with this blog template. Yes, I am quite bored and definitely trying to avoid studying. Not perfectly pleased with the puke that you see now, but too lazy to start going through any more templates. 


So maybe I will stick with this for a while.

Thesis seminar continued

Yeah, feeling better about the topic that I wrote this morning. I think that I might actually stick with that! The biggest problem might be how to get the data. Interviews would be the most likely option, but if I would research numerous cases (some failed, some succeeded) it would take a lot of time, effort and also case companies.


Scoping will help to ease that problem though and this topic should be doable. Ghihi.

Thesis seminar

We have a seminar about our Master's thesis today where we are supposed to work on our thesis topics. Which is a bit of a problem since I don't have a topic yet. Or maybe I do. Yesterday before going to sleep I was thinking - surely a bad sign - and came up with the following:

IT service launch in foreign markets.

That topic could be explored from various view points, like strategy, marketing, localization etc. Let's see what happens.

"Refreshing" weekend in Tallinn

We went to Tallinn, Estonia for the weekend with M on Friday evening. The plan was to meet T, N and R in there and that we certainly did. Amazing weekend is now behind us, at least I had a lot of fun. But not that much sleep.... Some pics will soon be in facebook, more details only in person :)


The plan was to stay in Helsinki from Sunday to Monday and conduct an interview for our SMoG course in Helsinki, but the person who we were supposed to interview called on Sunday that he is sick and thus unavailable for the interview. I guess we will conduct that via telephone on a later date.

Today when going to class...

...I heard this high pitched singing behind me. The lyrics were really deep and meaningful: MINT CHOCOLATE FREZZAA, MINT CHOCOLATE FREZZAAAA


Yup, all you people from MITIM can easily guess who was that freak behind all that :D Or actually you don't need to be MITIM, it is enough if you have even once met this person :D Life is not boring if you are an idiot. And I use the word "idiot" as a good thing in this context :)

Our journey as consultants begin

We had our first classes of consulting project today. I was a bit surprised that the cases or rather the companies where that small businesses or organizations. Anyway, it doesn't mean that those would not be potentially really interesting cases. Maybe the smaller organizations actually want to hear the results and maybe even implement some of the ideas that we give them. I would not be sure whether some large multinational company would do that...


The division in to groups was not done in an ideal way. We didn't get to choose our groups, but for a logical reason for most part. Some groups did require native Finnish or Russian speakers, usually 2. Some people might have felt left out since they were neither. But anyways, now we are in our groups and I am happy with the composition of mine. Although I am 80% sure we have on freerider in our group of 4.... Anyways, I am confident that we will do a good job on the project.

Exchange report from fall semester done.

Exchange application

I applied on exchange on Friday, which was the deadline for applications. The good thing is that you could easily change your preferred destinations since I didnt pay that much attention where I was applying to... Thats because my preferred destination is a partner university from GSOM. However, MIB (Master in Business) students get to choose their destinations first before us, so lets see if there still are places available when I get to choose. I'm not that optimistic about that at the moment, but I have some devious plans in my backpocket :)


The good thing is that LUT also has partner in the same city, which is obviously my number one choice. 


(Somehow I don't want to write down where I prefer to go, I think I might jinx it or something :D)

Yahoooooo, going on exchange during the 3rd semester

Now just need to apply to exchange places through LUT. The deadline of applications is already tomorrow, so I need to be quick to decide where I want to go. We MITIM-students can also utilize the GSOM partner-university network and I am seriously thinking about applying to one of those options. But first I'll be applying through LUT before we know what are the options through GSOM. If I prefer to go to GSOM partner, I can then delete my application from LUT and make room for someone else wanting to go.


7 of us 35 MITIM students can go on exchange during the 3rd semester. The selection was made based on academic results (i.e. average from our studies from GSOM).


Interesting times indeed.

About 4 weeks until Mexico!!!

Seminar

Today we had a "business seminar". It's in quotation marks because I really didn't see the business part of that - of course there was a nice presentation about Technopolis and the guy giving the presentation seemed very nice and all, but somehow I felt we have kind of heard most of that stuff before. After that presentation there was a little bit about MITIM program now and then the floor was opened for all of us to give some feedback and ideas how to improve it in the future. To me it was a opportunity ruined, since the discussion got derailed on how to get an internship instead of actually talking about the content or structure of the program. I am not alone with my feelings, as many of my student colleagues also had similar feelings.

In the end we heard presentation from ex-MITIM student (who graduated this summer in the first ever MITIM batch) about her internship, Master's thesis and work at Kone corporation. I liked the presentation. Also one second year MITIM student presented her the progress of her thesis. It was cool to see what kind of topic did she had and how she had approached the problem, even though there was not that much actual content in the presentation. But I can understand that, since the work is still in the early phases of the process.

Statistics about the past year

During the last 12 months I have

• had 5 official addresses
• lived in 4 different cities
• visited or lived in 4 countries
• spoken 3 languages (if you can count my Russian as spoken :D)

...and I will add at least 2 new countries visited during this spring. Hopefully next fall I can add one more country to list of countries resided in. I guess this is the mobility politicians have been talking about!

Sports update

Things are going quite well also in the sports frontier. During the past 6 days I have been skiing twice, running once and also done weight lifting. Today its time to go running again.

The last classes of SMOG

Really liked the classes today too. I like the fact that in Finland the professors use a lot of examples from real life to make the subjects easier to understand. For example postbox producer Bobi was a fresh new company and their operating model very different from the obvious and traditional ones.


Now that the classes are over for this course it is time to put effort on the assignment and reading the articles. We scheduled the assignment today and basically according to that it should be ready one month before the deadline :) Not bad.

Some more classes of SMOG

Today we had a long day at school. The only class of the day was Strategic management of growth. I was prepared for a long hard day (from 10 to 18), but in the end it turned out to be quite relaxed. I really like the professor, he seems to be very knowledgeable person who knows what he is talking about but is at the same time relaxed and understands humor. Which is nice.

We also managed to get an interview with E for the assignment of this course. We are supposed to analyze the strategy of a company and also trying to figure out to which direction are the moving or they should move. The deadline is in the beginning of April, but our intention is to finish it way earlier. Because we are that good :)

First class in LUT

For a few days we have been participating in Strategic management of growth classes. Basically this course is about what are the phases of growth a company goes through or where does it fail while trying to grow. We have been examining the subject through variety of models and perspectives. Really interesting I must say! There is something that really appeals to me in these strategy-related subjects. Maybe its the fact that it is somehow mysterious and trying to outwit the other companies in the industry. Or at least make own company work better.

I really like the teacher. I can't put a finger on the things that I like about him, but for whatever reasons I do. I like his style, but I don't know if other students agree with me. At least majority of them are so quiet in the class....

In this class we also have to do a project in a groups of 2 or 3 persons. I've already formed my "team" with lovely E and we have an idea of the case company too. I will contact them later today and hope that they respond positively.

Feeling great!

I came to Lappeenranta on Sunday evening. Spent the first night at my cousins place (Thanks L!) before moving to my new crib. Thanks for the crib Liima! It all happened convieniently since my friend is on exchange during the spring and I needed a place for the same time - so win-win.

Yesterday we had the first day here at Lappeenranta. Welcome speeches, info about Sefe, LTKY and other relevant organizations were given. Unfortunately the situation with our overalls is not clear yet. I WANT TO GET MY YELLOW OVERALLS !!! Then I would have red, blue and the yellow ones :)

In the evening we had a "Finnish evening" at rantasauna. Some good food, games (that actually wasnt that lame as I feared) and of course sauna. Some of the girls were brave enough to come to sauna with the guys. And even to the snow. Well, some of them weren't that enthousiastic of going there but still even the ended up all snowy :D

Today we have had some more info about the practialities of studying in here. Basic and familiar stuff for me, but for new LUT students this can be confuzing. Anyways, they will get used to these systems soon I think.

Overall I am feeling really great. Yesterday reminded me that we really have a great group of people in this program and I can easily see myself collaborating or at least staying in touch with them after we graduate. I am also looking forward to our actual studies, I feel energetic!

Where does all this stuff come from?

When going to Lappeenranta, I try to go there pretty light. After all, I am going to live there most likely maximum of 4 months after which I hopefully move somewhere else to work during the summer. The amount of stuff is perplexing. Oh well.

Preparing to Lappeenranta

I've done all the necessary paperwork to move to Lappeenranta. This means informing my new address to officials (muuttoilmoitus) as well as applying for student grant. I just need to give a copy of lease agreement to Kela person in Lappeenranta before 10th of Feb. Shouldn't be too much to ask.

I am feeling quite good about the whole move. Life here at home in Joensuu has gotten a boring for me so a change of scenery is more than welcome. I also feel that I am again ready to continue studying and am actually looking forward to get back to school.

Applying for job in the 21st century

Things are definitely not the same than in the past. Today, seeking and applying for jobs is done mainly in the Internet. For a job seeker like me, it means that I have to visit several websites where they post the ads for vacancies. Some of them include lots of same ads, since companies want maximum visibility and do not want to miss potential employees because they didn't use the portal that the company uses. Basically you keep seeing the same stuff again and again with some different postings in the middle.

Quite so often the actual application happens in online portal. Which sucks to be honest. Usually it means entering the same basic information again and again in the form where they are then uploaded to their HR system. They want to know your name, address, contact information, work experience, language skills, education etc. It is really frustrating to input the same stuff that you have in your CV. On top of that, many companies want also your CV as an attachment. Yeah, so what is the point of typing in all the information then to these forms?

As if that isn't bad enough, today I experienced something totally new. After putting in all the required information and answering questions like "are you from UK? What about Canada?", writing a cover letter, copy&pasting my CV as well as attaching it, I had to do series of tests(!) to ensure my application is submitted. First, I needed to answer sixtysomething questions, which tried to get an image of how I work in a group, what is my background, how do I deal with deadlines and ideas and so on. That test took 30 minutes to complete. After that came another one, reasoning test which required me to choose a correct alternative to series of visual problems. You know, the kind that for example Mensa uses.

On some level I can understand these tests. It is a way for the company to profile the people and cut off unsuited people from their selection process. But for an applicant point of view that is really annoying! It took about 2 hours for me to apply to this ONE position! I consider it to be a bit of a long shot anyways so to waste that much time on this is really frustrating. When I began to apply there, the website didn't say anything about these tests. If I'd known, I guess I would not have applied....

So all in all, I just wish it would be easier. Just write a cover letter and CV, send them via email and then wait for response. In the current situation you just throw a rock and hope it reaches its target.

My flu is also getting better. Which is obviously cool.

Uneventful week

During this week basically nothing has happened. On Monday we received the schedule for spring semester which was cool. Makes it easier to plan ahead the spring time. I am quite sure there wont be too many changes in the the schedule unless there is some dramatic health issues on some professors or something. Which is cool, since during the fall the schedule kept changing quite a bit....

I have also applied to few internships during this week and am planning to continue doing so. Quite many companies still haven't started the recruiting process for seasonal workers, which is bit of a surprise. Or then I just don't remember anymore what is it like to beg for a temporary job. The job market is definitely challenging again this year and it will most likely be a struggle to find a job for the summer. But I am staying optimistic.

I've also started repeating the stuff we learned during the fall semester in Russian class. My class in Lappeenranta has already started so I am now trying to study a bit so that I would not be that out of the loop come time to say something in the classroom.

Budapest

First things first: Budapest is a freaking beautiful city. The beauty is different kind than in St.Pete - it is not that flashy but a bit more modest looking place. But, the thing is that at least to me it was more like "let's build a cool building because we can"-kind of place than "okay, now some emperor wants something really flashy". Kind of beautiful in a natural way - not too much makeup but just good bone- and body structure without too much glitter and stuff :) Btw, that is exactly the case with the local ladies too compared to Russian ones :)

Budapest is also cheap city, at least for a Finn. Basically everything in cheaper than in Finland, which is not a surprise at all. It's also cheaper than St.Pete for sure. One of the coolest things about BP and Hungary in general is the foooooooooooooooooooood. It's definitely yummy yummy across the board. They really do like their bread and red meat making the country kind of heaven for me :D Eros Pista - the hot paprika cream - is really good stuff and if you like hot food even a bit and visit Hungary you must, must try that one! Most likely you'll bring some of that with you to your home country. At least I did as did other members of our group.

From this trip I remember the Mexican dudes I got to know a bit and especially Pepes insane sandwiches :D Also the spas - a larger spa with many pools outside and a smaller, but older, some 500 years old spa - were amazing and definitely worth the visit. The water smells a bit funky because of the minerals in there, but with shower gel that problem can be solved. Really relaxing places and not that expensive either I think (something like 9 euros per visit). It was also refreshing to see functioning public transport system (a part of that is the oldest metro line in the continent, really cool in a way. Well maintained, short distances between stops.). Some of the places like the square of heroes were really impressive as was the older part of the city.

I will visit Budapest again for sure.

The old metro line.

The square of heroes.

The parliament.

More pictures in Facebook.

New Years in St.Pete

I have felt a bit lazy recently, when it comes to writing to my blog. About 1.5 weeks of traveling has taken its toll I guess. Or then I am just lazy.

I went to St.Pete after Christmas to have a paaaartyyy. Of course, it being me the ride there wasn't without problems. I went to Lappeenranta by train and from there my friend picked me up and we went together to Vainikkala to catch our train. Or that was the plan. When we reached Vainikkala, it became evident that they don't actually sell tickets in that station! How is that even possible??!?!? I should have bought a ticket from Lappeenranta if I wanted to get in that train. Oh well, L went to Piter by himself and I went back to Lappeenranta. Luckily I have some relatives there who were nice enough to give me a place to sleep and a ride to Vainikkala the next morning with the ticket. Finally, on 31st I managed to cross the border and reach St.Pete.

So remember, they do not sell tickets at Vainikkala!

After arriving to Piter in the afternoon, I took my stuff to the lovely (khmmm.) dorm before attacking the city. Or actually E's place where there was a group of 6 Finns eating together before the party. Thanks E for the blinis and tomato soup, especially the soup was perfect!

The actual party was in a club called Ludovic at Dumskaya. I had never been there before so it was a new experience. It was like a normal night club in Finland - several rooms with a bit different kind of music. But the place wasn't the party piece of the night, it was the company. One of the Norwegian exchange students had arranged the party for us, which was very nice of him. We had something small to eat and also loads of alcohol to drink. And of course about 80 of us exchange students and our friends. Some intensive man hugging and "you rock man", "thanks for everything this semester"-stuff and goodbyes. Some idiotic pictures, idiotic people etc. The normal stuff. Not the best party ever, definitely not but nevertheless a good one.

Unfortunately I didn't actually see that much what was happening outside of the club, so I can't say was there something way different happening in the streets. Well, E wrote something about that, check it out.

Back in Finland, this time for a longer time period.

I came back to Finland late yesterday evening. During my 1.5 week absence not that much has changed here, of course didn't expect that to happen either. New Years eve in St.Pete is now experienced and the life at Karabli is now over. I also took first ride in minibus from St.Pete to Helsinki and experienced the "joys" of it. More about that later. The latest adventure was in Budapest, Hungary. Beautiful city, great food! Some more details coming about that trip later too :)