International experience or going back home…

First thing that you may think reading this title is: how can I get a freaking international experience, if I go back home? Easily I would say =)

Hello and Salem, dear readers of JAMK Blog! My name is Saya and I am second year student, in International Business, and I am going to write about my practical training experience, in my homecounrty – Kazakhstan.

First of all, I should admit that finding an internship in your homecountry, is probably, easier and more comfortable thing to do. And I was follower of that, because I was looking for job opportunities only there: it’s cheaper and close to family. So, why not?

Fortunately, after my first year, between 10.06.17 – 10.09.17 there was going to be a huge event in the capital of Kazakstan, Astana. This event is called Astana EXPO – 2017. Some of you may have heard about the EXPO before, some of you many not, so I’ll explain it briefly. World Expo exhibition, is a worldwide exhibition, which is considered as a symbol of technological developments of different countries. This year, theme of the EXPO was “Future Energy”, which showed technological solutions for sustainable development of countries. As for young country like ours, that was an important event, so everyone in Kazakhstan new something about it (although, others had no idea =D). Thus, when JAMK informed me and other students from JAMK and other UASs with Kazakh, Russian and English language backgrounds, that there are guides needed to present Finland Pavilion, I doubtlessly applied.

Me (and other 14 students from Finland) were lucky enough to get a summer job at Astana EXPO – 2017. First thing, I want to point out, is that I haven’t worked with Finnish organizations before, but I had some expectations {that were positively justified=) }. Because Human Resource Management was on the highest level. Our managers really cared about us, we were talking just like friends, so the whole working atmosphere was amazing. So, based on my working experience, I would suggest to work with these guys, if you need a proper structure/job description, and also a good treatment in the workplace :D.  However, the main thing that I want to focus on is international experience.

There were more than 100 countries’ representatives working at EXPO area. So, it was like a small village full of different nationalities, communicating with each other. That was memorable, because every countries’ pavilion was doing some national days with traditional arts, food, dances etc. So, it actually felt, like you are visiting not just a pavilion, but the whole country (they even had passport and stamps!!!). Many concerts going on, parties and communication. It was very interesting to watch how representatives of different nationalities, create one big, common culture, but saving their national characters as well. Especially, the difference of their working styles was something interesting to watch. After learning a lot of theory, about how some cultures are more deal-oriented, or vice versa. It was nice to see that not just on the video, but actually at one place. For example, in U.S. pavilion guides were mostly having some small talks with visitors and creating a show (theory came true! :D), whilst for example in Lithuania they were mostly focusing on exhibits.   But, of course, the most interesting things were about technologies. As I chose a track of Technology Business, that was very useful to me, to know what is the future and the reality of “green energy” in different countries. And not being biased, I gotta say that Finnish technologies were ones of the best!

There are so many things that could be written, but I tried to illustrate crucial ones for me, that is why the blog was a little bit random (sorry, for that). But the core idea, I wanted to express is: If you would have an opportunity to work in very diverse and multicultural environment, use it! No matter where is it, your homecountry or somewhere in another universe!

Just for you to understand, you can enjoy a video, filmed there: