Aalto University: A meaningful career at the center of career events
The School of Business regularly organizes group mentoring events and other career events, where students get to meet School of Business alumni and have career-related discussions with them, and thus also get to know our alumni community better. Based on the feedback we have heard from our alumni, these events are perceived as very important, and our alumni are very happy to participate in these events to share their experiences with the students.
This time, in the five group mentoring groups of the event, students got to know the career paths of alumni who studied Management and International Business, International Design Business Management, Accounting, Economics, and Information and Service Management.
Our alumni are happy to share their experiences with our students
Discussions in the breakout rooms of the Zoom platform were varied about meaningful career paths and the benefits of the business degree for a career. In the discussions, alumni also brought up new career paths and opportunities for students and it was seen as particularly interesting. After the event, the students said it was great to see how helpful the alumni were and that they had the opportunity to network with our alumni.
‘As a student, it is interesting to get to know different career options and hear more about what kind of career choices alumni have made and what things have influenced where they are now. Hearing different career stories helps also to understand what kind of possibilities a business graduate has. The best thing about group mentoring is the interaction: to be free to ask questions and to think together about the opportunities offered by the business degree,’ says Elsa Huhtala, who is studying at the Master’s program in Management and International Business.
The best thing about group mentoring is the interaction: to be free to ask questions and to think together about our degree’s opportunities.
Elsa Huhtala, School of Business master’s student
Our International Design Business Management alumnus Selim Saukkomaa also thinks that the event was successful and that it was planned on the terms of the students: ‘We e.g. discussed about the details of my career path and about which courses were the most joyful to me and how I have benefitted from them in working life. We answered students’ questions and talked casually together about things. When I was a student myself, I yearned for such opportunities, but the other duties of mine and of alumni made the opportunities limited. In this sense, there is also some benefit from everything happening remotely now, as the threshold for participating in this event was low for both the alumni and the students.’
‘We also discussed in particular how great an opportunity the study time at Aalto University is: the fact that under the same roof, in addition to the School of Business, there are world-class technology schools and the world-class School of Arts, Design and Architecture, is incredibly unique. And perhaps this is a fact of which uniqueness and value one realizes only later in working life. During my own study time, I gained a huge amount of new, eye-opening experiences and friends from completely different fields than mine, specifically by attending courses from other majors and schools in addition to my business degree,’ says Saukkomaa.
‘Once again, we received excellent feedback from both students and alumni. The discussions went so well in small groups that we even ran out of time. Next time, we will maybe reserve a little more time for discussions ? Warm thanks to the alumni and students who participated,’ rejoices Tanja Makkonen, Senior Manager in School of Business Career Services.