International Business Degree Students at SeAMK, Finland [part 2]

Episode 15

This episode is a continuation of the conversation from episode 13. I talk with Junyi (Winnie) Ding & Betti Csiba about their experiences of moving to Finland, business culture in South Ostrobothnia, what Betti and Winnie do in their free-time and, of course, the weather.

Guests:

• Jinyu (Winnie) Ding & Betti Csiba – International Students.
• Miia Koski – Student counsellor, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences.

Download an MP3 file of International Business Degree Students at SeAMK, Finland [part 2]

Show notes

This is part 2 of a conversation, where we talk about experiences of moving to Finland, business culture in South Ostrobothnia, what Betti and Winnie do in their free-time and, of course, the weather.

The business culture in Etelä-Pohjanmaa is renowned for it’s entrepreneurial spirit, and both Betti and Winnie had experiences to share. You can hear Betti explain how a chance meeting on a flight to Hungary, led to her getting a useful introduction into the business community in E-P. Winnie also tells how he was introduced to the mobile game developer, that has since employed him to help launch it’s new game in China.

I then asked them to compare life in Finland to their home country. Naturally, Winnie had the biggest adjustment to make, from controlling China to liberal Finland, he tells about his realisation that he’d been misinformed for many years, and how he still knows more than his friends and family back home. Betti, on the other hand, found the dark winter most difficult to adjust to, but is getting happeir as Spring arrives. She also told an anecdote about a considerate train driver; a juxtaposition from many other countries, I imagine!

Video: SeAMK – International students working and studying in Seinäjoki

Of course, we continued the conversation about the weather. You can hear Miia tell about the Nepalese student who found the Finnish summer too hot to handle 😯 Also, Winnie relates his first experience of Finnish winter. While delivering newspapers. In Lapland. In -30 degrees!

Finally, I ask about free-time. When he’s not doing one of his many part-time jobs, Winnie enjoys spending time in the woods watching other people hunting, and relishes the opportunity to spend Christmas with different Finnish families, enjoying the food a traditions. Betti likes to visit the Apila library, walking or running along the lakeside and socialising with her fellow students.

In the first part of this conversation, we discussed what courses are on offer at Seinäjoki UAS, compared studying in Seinäjoki with China and Hungary, and discussed school dinners! You can listen to that episode here.

Video: Exchange Students in Seinäjoki

Self-promotion section

Some of my earlier podcasts relate to Winnie and Betti’s free-time activities

• Moose Hunting
• Apila Library

Finnish Words in this Episode

• Seinäjoen Ammattikorkeakoulu – Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences
  • SeAMK – Seinäjoki UAS
• Frami – derived from ‘Framilla’ meaning on display
  • Frami is a campus of buildings housing businesses, conference facilities and education faculties (including Seinäjoki UAS)
  • Frami Oy is the organisation running the business services for the campus
• Into Seinäjoki – a regional & business development organisation based in the Frami D building

Links

• Seinäjoki UAS http://www.seamk.fi/en
• Frami http://www.intoseinajoki.fi/frami/
• Into Seinäjoki http://www.intoseinajoki.fi/
• Seinäjoki UAS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/theSeAMK

Next episode  S.1 Ep.16 – Mikael and Jarl Matti proclaim Finland’s ‘Pink Revolution’