Podcast: Finn-ish: Tales of Integration | Season 2 | UNICOM+ | Integrating Finnish and International Students

Nour: Hello and welcome to another episode of Finnish Tales of Integration Season 2, a podcast by International Student Ambassadors. I'm Nour, a master's of student in Human Neuroscience and an international student ambassador at the University of Turku and I'll be your host for today's episode. In this series, we guide you through the next steps after you've settled in Finland, helping you thrive as an international student. If you're planning your move to Finland or Turku, check out season 1, which serves as a beginner’s guide to integration. So in today's episode, we'll explore the University of Turku Unicom+ project where students get practical experience and connect with companies. Our special guests for today are Lotta Metsärinne who is project planning officer and a career counselor at career services at University of Turku along with Doğan Güneş who is a master’s student in Inequality Interventions and New Welfare States which is known as INVEST program and who has benefited from the UNICOM+ project to share valuable insights, experience and practical tips for building a successful career path. So without further delay, let's get started. 

[Intro Music]

Nour: Thank you both for coming and taking your time to come to our podcast. So Lotta can you explain the UNICOM+ project and its goals?

Lotta: Okay, that's quite a broad question. But the Unicom+ project is basically a project to develop career and entrepreneurship parts within the universities in Turku. So it's a joint project together with the university of Turku, the university of applied sciences and Åbo Akademi University. We also collaborate closely with the city of Turku. So city's integration services are in a tight collaboration with us. The acronym UNICOM comes from uniting companies, employers and international university talents. So that is the goal. It's in the name. What we do is basically develop new models of cooperation between university students and local companies. We do this in three different main like packages or work groups. So we have the finding a job in an existing company which I work a lot with for example company visits and uh a thesis fair that is upcoming in this spring. Then we have the part that focuses on entrepreneurship where there are entrepreneurship workshops on everything from idealization to like ID rights and everything that goes into into entrepreneurship. And then we have like the final third package that focuses on PhDs and the postdocs early career researchers and how to find short-term job placements for these early career researchers in companies in the region. I will continue just a few explanations. So the UNICOM+ is a continuation to unicom that was heavily focused on technology and IT based companies in the region. Now with this plus we want to enlarge and engage also the more generalist fields that we have in our master’s programs for example and also at the applied sciences and the Åbo Akademi. So it sounds like big project. It is a big project. We are funded by the European Union. But the main goal is to create new models that we can then incorporate in our existing services. So we're I'm also part of the career services. This is done part of the career services and also the other work packages are closely tied to what is happening already in the university. 

Nour: Oh that's very interesting. Thank you for your description. And Dogan, you participated in that project, right? What caused it like what drew you to participate in that project?

Dogan: So basically first I'm a master student and I'm an international student. So like many international students, I'm planning to stay in Finland after my graduation. So you know like when I saw the coaching advertisement then yeah I thought why not because also like there was a strong emphasize on multiculturalism and I thought like you know for example let's say if I find a job in Finland then obviously it is a multicultural environment for me then I thought you know like why not I can participate and I can benefit from the from the things that the coaching presents. So, and also to be honest, I was a bit bored in Finland last year in my first years. Then I thought like it could be a good opportunity to know some people have like similar mindsets with mine. Yeah. So these were the main reasons. 

Nour: Oh, very well thought. 

Lotta: And the thing that Dogan has also that you participated in is part of the find a job in an existing company package. And the coaching is called multicultural work life. Basically we connect international and then domestic students to together think about their career paths and strengths and also to together go visit companies and organizations in the region. 

Nour: So what do you think how does it help students develop skills and connect with the Finnish workforce? 

Lotta: First and foremost, it's also a way to make international students more present in the Finnish working life. So we have because we have more resources, we can also we have the resources now to connect with companies, we have the time like we can put time and effort to connect with employers and in that way bring them closer. hopefully and of course the same resources we can put on these events and like programs coachings that we are offering to students and in that way hopefully like start to I mean obviously everyone thinks about their career at some point and hopefully many think about their careers also before starting the studies here but sometimes it feels like the studies they take so much of the energy and so much of the like capacity of mental capacity. So it's easier to not think about your career. But then when you're put in a setting where you think about these things in an environment with others and in a more like continuous way then hopefully that will you now bring you also to develop your skills that then we need and of course the skills that are very related to um understanding the different cultural aspects whether that's in Finland or somewhere else. 

Nour: I understand. Yeah. And well your experience with Unicom+ was multicultural workshop already you've mentioned it. So could you tell me what did you learn from that workshop? 

Dogan: So first I think if I understood correctly like there was a big emphasize on our past at the beginning of coaching you know like kind of we were trying to reflect on our past or trying our best to interpret comments. Like to really dig deep. Maybe like for our careers or something, you know. And before I was thinking too much about it. So you know like I was thinking there should be of course a connection between our past and future and I think on the coaching I think we could understand that if we interpret like if we understand our past better then we can set logical goals for our future. 

Lotta: So this coaching it's based on narrative career coaching and like constructivist career theories. If someone is interested to Google what that is. So, it's really based on what Dorgan is saying about understanding your past to then maybe make the choices that feel more right to you or more natural to you and not just something that everyone else is doing and that you're kind of supposed to do. 

Nour: But more basically that not everyone thinks about when they think about their career building. 

Lotta: Yeah and work life is becoming very and is already quite individualistic and there are no like straight parts like you do A then you get to B and then you get to C. So it's very messy at the moment. Trying to make some sense of that mess could  also be a way to describe and then especially employers in Finland, they value motivation and they value your thoughts and how you like with what kind of mindset you come in. So if your mindset is I'm just going to work here, then they will probably not be so convinced of your motivation. Whereas if your motivation is I want to have an impact like this is really something I am eager to work with or want to develop then of course they're going to trust you you more in that place. 

Nour: Yeah. Interesting. So Dogan, you've already talked about your experiences in that workshop but do you think that participating in that workshop impact your skills confidence or even like career plans? Do you think like the impact it had impact on it? 

Dogan: I think there was a big impact on my self-confidence. So you know like I said I'm an international student in Finland and kind of I'm new here and if you are new in a country then probably you have a lot of question marks then you know like it is also about the applications or something because you don't know how you should apply or what you should care of when you are applying and especially in this sense companies were quite beneficial for me so I went twice case and the hosts of the companies were warm and open, they were also willing to understand their work environment. So to know these kind of things and I think it was quite beneficial for my job applications or internship applications. So yeah then I could say that I think this helped me to boost my self-confidence. 

Nour: Yeah that's a very valuable experience to gain from a workshop. And do you recommend this workshop or the experience that you had to other students? 

Dogan: Yes of course I do. 

Lotta: He doesn't have any option to say haha.

Dogan: But I need to say that it is I think it's a quite personal experience you know I mean like it depends on how you reflect on the tasks and the activities on the coaching so you know like I think you need to you need to like give some time to you know to understand better the content or something then I I think it works. So basically I recommend Yeah. 

Nour: So Lotta, for students who are interested in Unicom+ projects, what advice would you give? 

Lotta: Keep your eyes and ears open. That is the message and maybe even more your eyes. I mean we are continuously for example scheduling new company visits also outside of this coaching. So reading the messages that we send from the career services or from the university side is important in order to for you to know what is happening. And maybe when it comes to general approach to networking or joining the company visits or joining a coaching like this is to not think about the immediate value that it might have. Or not to think that you will gain something from it like immediately but more seeing it as an investment okay in the future and that's something that you gain now in insights about yourself or connections to employers or connections to other students whether they are domestic or international they will probably not yield something directly but maybe in six months or a year you will kind  of see the value of what you did in your case last autumn. So yeah, so having eyes open and then also like not expecting a quick fix, would be my advice. Yeah, thank you.

Nour: So Dogan, any tips for making the most of such opportunities and connecting with companies? Do you have any tips for people? 

Dogan: Yeah, but like very very easy tips. So like I said before like I think like they  need to do some time you know but after that if you ask okay I'm there you know I give my time so what should I do then I recommend like think a bit deeply what the opportunities what the events are trying to tell you you know like if you try to understand what they're telling or why they are telling those things then I think you will get like a better understanding then I think you know like it will be more beneficial for you I mean I know it might sound a bit philosophical but it is what I did.

Nour: Thank you for your insights. So in today's episode we explored the University of Turku's Unicom+ project and how it bridges the gap between student and working life in Finland. We discussed the goals of Unicom+ and how it helps the students develop practical skills and value of collaborating with companies during studies. The episode concludes with practical advice and tips for students interested in making the most of such opportunities. So, thank you again for coming and thank you again for your valuable insights and sharing your experiences with us. Thank you for tuning into Finnish Tales of Integration season. We hope this episode brought you clarity, comfort, and a reminder that you're never alone in this journey. Before we wrap up, a quick announcement. Our next meet and integrate event will take place on 13th of February at Mercatori. A great opportunity to connect, make new friends, and feel even more at home here. Take care, stay connected, and we'll see you in the next episode.

[Outro Music]