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!