From initial confusion to enthusiasm - project workshops provide working life skills
It may feel like participating in Turku University of Applied Sciences project workshops in the first autumn of studies, like being throwed
straightly into deep water. Students Aino Virtanen and Iina Niinivaara says that the course has helped with employment, self-confidence and professional development, as well as organizational skills.
In their first year of study, students from the Technology and Business sector of Turku University of Applied Sciences will participate in the project workshop course. The course is run with a big hand, as it is attended by all about 1,300 beginning students. Students are divided into multidisciplinary groups of more than ten people, each of whom gets their own project topic. The same group has students from different fields ranging from mechanical engineering to sales work, and each group implements their projects during the fall.
Aino Virtanen, 22, a student of production economics, had heard about project workshops even before she even started studying at Turku University of Applied Sciences.
– It wasn’t really good feedback. For many, it was a surprisingly difficult idea to be in a multidisciplinary group. In addition, many were annoyed when the assignment did not necessarily fall directly into their own field. I myself was skeptical about my own group at the time: about organizing a recruitment event, Virtanen says.
The juju of the course opened up after the initial wonder: the project itself and its topic do not play a major role, but the aim is to learn to work in a multidisciplinary group, as in working life in general, and to master the basics of project work skills. The project workshop will practice how to make team play work towards a common goal and what it takes to take on the role of an independent learner. At the same time, we learn the way of studying at Turku University of Applied Sciences.
– It is confusing to jump directly in the first year of study to do a joint project with strangers, but I think it’s more of an advantage that the course comes as soon as everything is new anyway. At that point, no one has yet grouped with students in their own field, and the course provides basic skills in project management for future years of study, Virtanen reflects.
Aino Virtanen believes that project workshop learning is useful in employment.