Nordic Brilliance Blogs

Hello everyone! Today I want to give new students some tips about Finnish medical system. No one wants to get sick, but international students need to know how to use the medical system. Finland has a very high standard of medical services, which is an important benefit for students.

International students can go to hospitals which belongs to Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS http://www.yths.fi/en/).

Go to the reception and present your student ID. The registration is free. From the website (http://www.yths.fi/en/fees) you can find the list of services subjects to charge.

I have been to Töölö Medical Centre because of my toothache. The visiting address of Töölö Medical Centre is Töölönkatu 37 A, 00260 Helsinki. I think this is the nearest Medical Centre to our school. The dentist was very professional and patient. She told me I had got periodontal disease. (sad…) And I could have a 10 min tooth cleaning for free. (became happy…) Then the dentist filled my tooth. Töölö Medical Centre has advanced medical equipment. To be honest, the treatment process was a little bit uncomfortable. But the treatment was very successful. Finally, the dentist gave me some tips about dental care. Thanks for her advices, I have no toothache anymore!

“A healthy lifestyle and good interpersonal relationships affect your health, physical condition and ability to cope.” As an international student, the climate in Helsinki may be different from your hometown. Having a good lifestyle will help you adapt to a new environment. I really hope you don’t need to go to the hospital, though I gave you tips about medical treatment. ^^

Liu Ye

Hi everyone,

Today, I am not going to write about events, networking, or courses at Hanken. I am going to write about food.

Studying in Finland has a lot of advantages. However, Helsinki remains an expensive city in comparison with the majority of other capitals. The good news is that as a student, you will have a lot of benefits -one of them being that you can have lunch for no more than 2.60€ (!!). The city centre is full of so-called Uni-Café where you can enjoy cheap food. Hanken has its own cafeteria, run by the famous Fazer Food company.

From Monday to Friday, between 11:00 and 15:00, you can choose between several lunch options. There is always a buffet of 4-5 different salads, a vegetarian meal, a non-vegetarian option, a soup, and an ‘upgraded option’. In addition, there are also several kinds of bread (white bread, rye bread, gluten-free bread, etc.) and bread-spreads. In summary, for less than 3€, you can take a small plate of salads + a normal plate of ‘warm-food’ + bread + a drink (such as milk or juice). If you are still hungry, the cafeteria also sells a number of sweets and sandwiches. Finally, you do not need to be worried if you have special diets. You will (or may) always been able to find an option which suits your needs.

Having a healthy lunch is extremely important when spending the full day studying and learning as it provides good nutrients to your brain. As students, we have all experienced the traditional student pizza and spaghetti, because they are easy to cook and cheap. For this reason, it is very nice to have the opportunity to eat a balanced meal for a very cheap price at the cafeteria. Furthermore, sharing lunch with your friends is far better than eating alone, at home.

Finnish food is not known to be the tastier food. But no worries, Hanken cafeteria also has tasty dishes such as its famous “Pizza-Friday”. So, keep the fast-food for the weekend and enjoy a more varied and healthy diet during the week, for no more than 2.60€.

Enjoy your meal!

Robin

Hi everybody, I hope you all do fine and had a great start in the year. I returned to Helsinki in yearly January. I spent the Christmas break back in Germany and used the time to see my family and friends. Besides that, I used my time to prepare for one of my biggest to does in the year 2019 – finding a job in Helsinki. I updated my CV and polished my Cover letter. In addition to applying to advertised vacancies I took the incentive and contacted the talent recruiters of the companies I am was interested, I asked about potential vacancies and the possibilities to work for them as an international with little knowledge of the Finnish language. I can only recommend doing that to anybody who is interested in finding a job. Once I return to Helsinki I got invited to interviews by several companies and I made it to the further stages in the application process, which is extremely exciting, so stay tuned and cross your fingers that in my next blog entry I have some great news.

Besides my job hunt I am in the last phases of my master studies. I am currently continuing to write my thesis and I am participating in the Cases in Finance course. In this course students have the chance to solve real life business cases together with real companies. The course is very comprehensive and interesting. I think it is safe to say that this is the most practical course in the Finance master curriculum. So far, we had to chance to work together with MCF Corporate Finance, Citi Group and KPMG. The next cases will be provided by PwC and J.P. Morgan. The cases are solved by groups of two which is a great way of interacting with new people you have not met before, especially as an international student.

Apart from the daily study grind I spent my doing sports and participating in some of the various student activities organised by Hanken’s student committees such as going to drive Karts together with Hanken’s sport committee. Now there is nothing left I have to say and thus, I will go back to the grind and work on my thesis.

I hope all of you are doing great and you will achieve your set goals for the year 2019, until the next time.

Cheers,

Marcel

veryone loves holidays, but Christmases time is special – it is associated with miracles, childhood, and a fairy tale. Christmas virus vanity involves us in its ‘dance’ that we cannot resist!

Many of us come from different countries with different Christmas and NY traditions and I am not the exclusion. Yet in Russia, the tradition to celebrate Christmas is not so popular than in Europe, but New Year is so much loved here that we even celebrate it twice!

I have my own tradition to spend these holidays in Moscow with my family and we always plan in advance our cultural program. I even call it a cultural marathon – this is how we prepare to the 31st of December when at a midnight we will make our wishes for the new year with the strong belief that they should become true!

 

As the international student ambassador I have the right to make my wish right now on behalf of all Hanken students: Santa, please, make the exams easy and our answers brilliant; lectures fascinating and interesting, and bring a lot of great job offerings to all of us!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Jane

Hi everyone,   

Hope you are having a great week!  

Studying at Hanken is a great opportunity for international students. In fact, you have the chance to attend different events and network with different well-known companies. Yesterday I had the pleasure to attend the PWC Case Study. The event started at 17:30. During the first hour, there was a presentation of the EDGE program that PWC offers to students soon to graduate or have been recently graduated. After that we had a short break and were divided into 4 groups of 5 people each, to solve a case study. We had only one hour to solve the case. They gave us some material to analyze in order to answer three questions. After the time was up, we had ten minutes presentation of the solutions. As an Economics student, I was not able to know the finance terminology that was present in one question. However, my great team managed to solve it. In the end, our solutions were the best solution among all the teams. After all the teams presented their solutions, we all went to a restaurant. The food was delicious. It was also a great way to get to know PWC people in an informal way and ask them questions.  

This case was a great opportunity for me to learn how to be able to think and give solutions to subjects that I am not familiar. My advice is to be as much as possible active in different events that Hanken offers, even if they are not related to your major. In this way, you get to know students from other majors and meet companies.  

I will leave in a few days for Christmas holidays in Italy.   

To all of you, happy holidays and best wishes.   

-Ana 

Today, Finland celebrates 101 years of independence. The country, which is proud of its traditions, history and people. Finnish people themselves describe the national character with a word which does not have an easy-to-find literal equivalent in English – sisu. Sisu stands for determination, bravery and resilience. Exactly what you need in order to meet the last deadlines of the year before the holiday week starts!

Meanwhile, the city streets (and Hanken as well) are changing its appearance bringing more warmth and festive feeling of Christmas holidays to the dark winter days. It looks quite unusual without the snow and I really wish that the weather will change; not sure what people say about global warming, but this winter looks warmer than ever. I am still riding a bicycle every day and what I heard from the news, tourism business in Lapland has been affected by the snowless days in a very negative way. But do not catch the pessimistic vibes. Looks that there is a high demand for professionals in the area of sustainability, circular economy and responsible business strategy. I have to say, Hanken has opened my eyes to the world sustainability issues and also has given me a vision on how to solve them. 

As a gift for the Independence Day, a new library in the heart of Helsinki has been opened. Have a look at the architectural masterpiece! I am glad that my thesis is still in the process because I was dreaming about going to the library and using its spaces (which are free for everyone). There you can find not only books and study rooms but also 3D printers and even sewing machines.  

Hey,

My name is Vytas and I am currently on a QTEM exchange at EDHEC Business School in Nice, France. I would like to share my experiences of living in the French Riviera as well as studying at one of the best finance programmes in the world. I hope that those interested in QTEM and EDHEC will find this information useful.

Life in Nice

Nice is not a large city so it was actually easy to adapt to the lifestyle, especially after living in similar size cities before. Nice is situated on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in the very south of France, close to the border with Italy. The location itself is great because it allows visiting cities such as Cannes, Milan, Geneva, even Monaco in no time. However, people coming from Finland will probably appreciate the weather rather than location. At the end of November, it is still pretty warm and some days may resemble a summer time.

Going around the city is rather is rather easy but not as easy as in Helsinki Helsinki. For example, some areas may have only a few lines of busses which means that they are over-crowded in the morning and afternoon. It is also not as reliable in terms of arrival times and some buses stop operating just before 10 pm. In general, the locals seem to settle in here early and once the summer season is over, the city may look empty at only 8 pm on a business day.

I am pretty sure that you have heard about communication difficulties in France if one does not know French. Well, at least from my own experience, they are true. Therefore, my advice is to take a French class at EDHEC as those few learnt French words will ease your life here. Good thing is that you do not really need to interact with any authorities here that much. During the welcome days, EDHEC invited representatives from public transport, insurance companies, and you could do all the necessary paperwork almost immediately after arriving.

EDHEC Business School and the M.Sc. Finance Programme

The school itself is rather modern. For instance, it has an app where you can be notified of upcoming lectures, homework; see the entire course-related material, your absences. Regarding the latter, you are not allowed to have unjustified absences. Interestingly enough, you actually have to badge yourself in every class. Only then you are considered as present and you do not have to justify the absence. Additionally, the school is located right next to the airport so you can just look at planes landing and taking off all day.

I would like to draw the key highlight to the M.Sc. Finance programme itself. According to the Financial Times, it is currently ranked as the third-best Finance programme in the world. All the courses with no exception are very practical. As far as I understood, barely any of our teachers are actual researchers; most of them are just professionals working in their field for a long while.

Here is the list of the courses I have to take this fall semester:

• Advanced Excel and VBA Programming
• Bloomberg Market Concepts
• Corporate Finance
• Financial Accounting and Analysis
• Intercultural Seminar
• Money and Capital Markets
• Options, Futures and Other Derivatives
• Python for Finance
• Quantitative Methods in Finance
• Valuation
• Values, Cooperation and Trust

After looking at this list, you may be wondering how is it possible to have 11 courses in a semester (well, technically it is only 9 courses, as Values, Cooperation and Trust and the Intercultural Seminar are not that demanding). First of all, I am not sure whether it is an EDHEC specific or national wide system but classes here account for fewer ECTS than at Hanken. For example, classes such as Python and Excel are 1.5 ECTS while Corporate Finance, for example, 3.5 ECTS. However, this does not mean any less work. Actually, in terms of hours they are like any regular 6 ECTS course we are used to at Hanken. Second of all, all the courses with no exception are very practical. Eight out of nine courses listed above involve a course project which usually constitutes for around 20-30 per cent of the final grade. Additionally, one class here is actually 3 hours with 15-20 minutes break after 1.5 hours. Actually, they are not called lectures but are actual sessions. For example, Python is a 15 hours course, meaning that we had 5 sessions or around 8-9 regular Hanken like lectures. Again, that is 1.5 ECTS course!

How to cope up? It is pretty difficult but manageable. The hardest part is that the autumn semester is rather short and most of the lecturers fly in just to teach so the classes are adapted to their schedule. At the moment, there are only around 20 days left until the end of the semester and I have barely finished 4 courses from the list. That is how tight the schedule could get.

Regardless of the intense schedule, the courses are very practical and I think that is the key difference compared to Hanken courses. I feel like I have been given an opportunity to apply the theoretical foundations learned at Hanken in various case studies and projects. For instance, in a relatively short time, I was able to learn and work on interesting VBA as well as Python projects. Regarding the former project, our final task was to build a program that would simulate prices of options under the Monte Carlo method. In the Python course, we had to create a code that would allow us to compare three possible investments given their expected future cash flows and changing economic conditions. In the Corporate Finance course, we had to solve a case of Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of newspaper business. Quantitative Methods in Finance course involved analysing the simple regression, ARMA, and GARCH models based on real market data. I think you can get the idea.

Additionally, a very interesting and real value adding course is Bloomberg Market Concepts. It is a self-paced, around 10 hours online course of a visual introduction to the financial markets after which you are rewarded a Bloomberg certificate which you can add to your CV. For this course, you will work in a Bloomberg class where computers with Bloomberg terminals are located.

As you can see, the QTEM provides a great chance for you to study at the best universities around the world. Overall, the best thing about this particular exchange programme is the fact that in one semester I will be able to complete half of the whole Finance programme as it runs only for a year. This provides a huge added value to my Hanken’s degree as I can diversify my field of expertise from a practical perspective. Thus, if you have any question regarding the QTEM programme or studies at EDHEC in Nice, feel free to contact me.

You can also check out some pictures from my time in Nice below.

Vytas

 

By Silas Mwangi

Hello!

As I promised from my previous post I will continue from where I left last time. When I got the acceptance letter to Hanken, I also received an email to apply for the international talent program. I applied but I did not believe that I was good enough to be chosen. This insecurity stems from sending tons of job applications and never getting a positive response.

Luckily, I was chosen to take part in the interview. I had a good session and although I did not get a mentor I maintained contact with the HR who helped me get a mentor. I will revisit this later in the story.

At first school was quite challenging, we had many courses and most of the topics were relatively new. The workload was also quite heavy. However, I decided to not only focus on my studies but to actively engage in other school activities. There were many invitations to working breakfast, networking events and even mentorship program meetings. Getting involved in these activities made me feel like I belong.

Since day one at school I have always felt welcomed by the school. I have grown to develop a lot of affection for the Hanken community. In my personal life journey, I have noticed I have become more articulate, confident and respected among my peers. All these changes have taken place in a span of 1 year.

As last year whizzed by I feel that I have attained my highest achievement in Finland. I started my first master’s degree, networked with so many companies and the highest achievement is working for Wärtsilä as a summer trainee. It was quite interesting how I landed in Wärtsilä.

Having changed my profession from telecommunication to environmental engineering, I got more interested with Wärtsilä. The company stands for everything that I have envisioned in terms of creating sustainable solutions and at the same time empowering people to improve standards of living. Having grown up in Africa I know how people lack access to clean water and reliable power. Wärtsilä on the other hand have experience in creating power solutions for many years. I have always hoped to join such a company and learn from them. My hope is to somehow influence the transfer of knowledge from such companies to my home country. This would be a win-win situation for both Kenya and Finland.

I got a call one spring morning from a HR who asked me if I had applied for a summer job. Two days earlier I had got a regret letter from the company about not being a successful applicant. She went on to tell me a position opened up which I had prior experience for. I could not believe it, unfortunately I was still going to undergo an interview and there were two other candidates. I used all the tips I was offered by friends, professionals who I networked with and my mentor. To top that I even bought a new suit since all my suits were not fitting me. After all I never used them for the many years I have lived here. In the end I managed to get the job and that experience really made me believe in myself.

I also got offered the student ambassador position which is why I am in this blog now. I have already carried out two official tasks. Together with Hanken staff, we visited two polytechnics in Vaasa advertising the school. I enjoy talking about Hanken since I have had a positive experience. This I believe is because of what the school stands for and the ideals it installs in the members of the Hanken community. That is all from me and Happy holidays!!

Hello!

This is my first blog post ever and I will be posting it as an international student ambassador. Although I am a bit nervous, I feel proud to finally try something new. Before I proceed, let me introduce myself. My name is Silas Mwangi and I am a second year Master student in General Management. I am Kenyan and have been living in Finland since 2010.

Every time I meet someone new I keep getting the same question. “What are you doing in Finland?” Whenever I answer to study then I always get the follow – up “why Finland”? I always try to give a simple answer because Finland has the best education in the world. Frankly when I ponder on why I moved to Finland back in 2010 it was a combination of many factors.

I finished high school in 2004 and did not have a clue what I was passionate about. My dad was a manager in a telecommunication company and I thought his job was exciting. However, I did not want to commit fully before having a ‘taste’ of the job. I studied telecommunication at a diploma level and joined the job market. I worked as a technician for 2 years. The job was demanding and the pay low so in 2007, I decided to study more to get a promotion. During that time there were many stories about how the university education was poor quality. I tried to search universities abroad, but the tuition fees were too expensive. Then one day I stumbled upon free university in Finland.

At first, I thought it was a hoax since my parents have instilled the quote “when the deal is too good, think twice”. In the back of my mind I knew Finland was the home of Nokia which was a telco giant. I decided to take the gamble and applied. There were many challenges all through the application process including the visa application. Despite all the setbacks I got a position in VAMK to study a bachelor in IT and I thought my dream to work for Nokia would be achieved.

However, when it came to specialization in the third year they dropped the telecommunication option. I had the choice of transferring to either Helsinki or Jyvaskyla to purse the dream. By that time, I had grown to love Vaasa so much that I decided to change my profession. I joined Novia and in 2016 I graduated with a bachelor’s in environmental engineering. I felt the need to study further and get a masters qualification since it would open more opportunities for me for example starting a consultancy firm. I scouted for the best suited masters for me for one year. I settled on Vaasa university and Hanken as my options. I applied to both and lucky I got accepted in both universities.

I chose Hanken instead of Vaasa University after carefully weighing both options. I already had developed technical skills, but I did not have the business skills necessary to hold a managerial position or even start my own firm. Looking back, I can say it has been a really interesting journey and if I could go back I think I would still choose the same. Join me next time as I give you a glimpse into my life in Hanken and how I ended up here in this blog post. Goodbye!