Welcome Freshmen!

During the orientation weeks, you have probably heard, or you will hear, several speeches about the possibilities of BBA education. You also probably won’t remember half of it and luckily you will have time to look into these facts later. Since it wouldn’t be sensible for you or me to now go through all the facts about BBA’s, I want to focus on things that I myself would have liked to have known and taken into consideration right from the start of my studies.

There is an enormous variety of specialization options available in BBA education: Business, IT, Sales, International Business, Library & Information Services, Security, Wellness, Business Logistics… I could go on and on. Anyhow, we are a diverse group of experts from different fields all over Finland. It is a so-called generalist qualification or a general qualification: it prepares you for a wide variety of jobs and offers many potential career paths. No limits, as stated by the slogan of Students of Business and Technology.

Although there are many career opportunities available for BBAs, there can also be challenges in being a generalist degree graduate or student. There are 21 different Universities of Appplied Sciences which are educating BBAs, which is why we have a lot of BBAs and BBA students in Finland. Competition is hard and and there are plenty of other applicants for the most jobs. This is why it’s important to stand out from the crowd and it is definitely worth starting to build your own professional profile during your studies.

Building a professional profile can sound quite serious and difficult, but that is not what it has to be. It could be more fitting to encourage everyone to seize new opportunities and try plenty of different things during their studies. This is essentially accompanied by an open mind during actual studies and lectures. For some of you, it may seem like for example entrepreneurship is not your own thing, or financial management must be difficult and you are not even going to try to succeed in that. I can guarantee that you will get much more out of your studying time if you haven't locked some doors in advance. Don't be too afraid of failure: sometimes it is okay to take small sideways during your studies.

So what are the opportunities and things mentioned in the previous paragraph? They can be interesting projects, exchange studies, internships abroad or here in Finland, or basically anything that life as a student has to offer! You can also get involved in organisational activities, which allows you to create networks that can help you find a job. This is where you can show that you are active and willing to learn something new. At the same time, you will get experience comparable to  work experience and and you can find your own interests as well. In a nutshell, you will stand out from other job applicants!

Still, my most important advice to freshmen is to be proud of your education and degree. Even if you won’t remember anything else from this post, remember this one! It’s quite annoying to hear so much negative self-talk from BBA students, because they don’t respect their own education. This is very toxic to the appreciation of our studies and degree. Even though Students of Business and Technology with Graduates of Business and Technology are working to improve the appreciation of BBA degree, our studies and degree hold as much value as we ourselves put on it: if we do not appreciate it, no one else will.

Good luck with your studies: being a student is the best time of your life!

Kaisu Hilska Chairperson of the Board 044 072 8996 kaisu.hilska@tradenomiopiskelijat.fi