Practical training at AIESEC Jyväskylä

Here’s another story about how to get professional skills and meet bunch of nice people while not going far away from the city. I found out about AIESEC in September 2018 when I came across an appealing email which said that a lot of things about working in multicultural environment as well as ability to develop and/or master such skills as finance and HR. I must say that finance hasn’t been my favorite topic for discussion not to mention that I wanted to work with numbers. However, this practical training where I served as a local head of finance and legalities for a year from 1st February 2019 to 31st January 2020 showed me the area of finance from a completely different angle. I’ve learnt that finance is not only about numbers, revenues or expenses. I’d learnt about how to prepare a financial statement and annual report. How to create and maintain various budget scenarios. In other words, it allowed me to use all the knowledge which I’d been gaining through my studies at JAMK and apply it into practice. As a local head of finance, I was a part of executive board which was responsible for running the AIESEC Jyväskylä as an organization as well as managing teams from two departments: B2C and B2E.

The skills that I’d mastered during that period of time included accounting skills, creation of budget and financial statement, carrying out bookkeeping on monthly basis etc. Moreover, as a head of finance and legalities I was responsible of attendance of legal board meetings where legal matters would be discussed.

To wrap up I must say that although this practical training wasn’t a paid one, it gave some much more than I could ever imagine. It allowed me to feel like an important person in the managerial position and that my actions and decision actually matters. On top of that it granted me an amazing opportunity to meet and work together with people that I can now call friends. I totally agree with people who say that when you work in a company its’s not only that company takes from you but it also gives you a lot. All you need to do is to not forget to take it!

Author: Yana Viktorova