Students will be employed: Effort put on traineeship pays off

– I did my traineeship for Levi’s Alpine Houses in Autumn 2015 and received a phone call with a job offer the following summer. I packed along my cat and my boyfriend from Pori and within two weeks we had moved to Levi.

Miina works as a sales and marketing coordinator. Her duties include among other things prizing, marketing of the company together with the advertising agency, updating the social media channels and overseeing the marketing budget. In addition to these tasks, Miina also works as a tutor for the trainees. 

Every day is unique and that is why I like my job here.

– My duties here vary a lot during one work day. During the same day, I may have simultaneously worked as the marketing and prizing supervisor, as well as a cleaner, receptionist, maintenance worker, parking supervisor and a salesperson. Every day is unique and that is why I like my job here.

Studying is not only reading 

Miina has positive memories of her studies at SAMK. The teachers were professional and nice, the lectures were interesting and projects with companies gave good advice for working life.  

– At first I held the assumption that studying in the UAS would just be endless sitting at lectures, reading and taking exams, but how wrong was I! We had a lot of projects, group work, having fun and the learning took place through all that.

The most important learning experience for Miina was doing her traineeship. On top of that the teachers provided practical examples and stories of their own work experiences that have been were very useful, too. Doing her thesis was also a pleasant experience for Miina after coming up with a topic that was personally interesting for her. 

– Field of tourism has its own jargon and a lot of vocabulary that is constantly required at work. I thank myself for especially paying attention to this aspect during my studies. In addition, the studies of entrepreneurship were interesting. We created our own business agenda on those courses and it is useful for me still today.

Put an Effort on Your Traineeship  

So far, Miina has no plans of continuing her studies because she enjoys her job. Miina recommends tourism studies because the field of tourism also offers jobs.  

– Tourism in Finland and especially in Lapland is growing at a fast pace. It is, however, good to bare in mind that people working in tourism will most often work during holiday seasons and the work is mostly offered seasonally.

As a piece of advice for current tourism students or people interested in the studies Miina says that it is very advisable to put an extra effort on the traineeship. Miina also gives praise to the international exchange opportunities that SAMK offers.  

– There’s no reason to hesitate going for traineeship outside your home region, even abroad!