Adult students are demanding – we have a long work experience behind us, we know quite a lot about many things. The one who teaches us, needs to know a lot more than we, the students, know, and that is challenging!
I started my studies at Industrial Management Master’s programme at Metropolia AMK in September 2017. First, I was a bit hesitant if I have enough time and motivation to carry out any Master’s studies. Would it even be possible in less than a year? Will these studies give me enough new knowledge? Are the teachers skilled enough to pour information into us, already experienced students?
Pretty soon I found out that the teaching is best-of-breed, and teachers are motivated and skilled, they are not only academically competent, but they indeed have profound work experience on versatile business areas. Also, my fellow students seem to be a real source of inspiration. They represent every possible engineering field and a huge variety of different nationalities. We have a strong commitment at our class room that we are doing this together. This year will definitely give me a lot!
Before my studies began, I had imaged myself sitting alone in a dungeon, writing my thesis day in and day out. On the first day, I found out, that Industrial Management has an exceptional process which helps us to write our Master’s thesis in a clear and organized way. It is a 7-gate process that guides the students through the thesis almost collectively, as a group, moving from point to point and sharing the outcomes immediately as they appear, at every stage of the Master’s project. With the help of motivated supervisors, teaching, personal mentorship and regular presentations. I was relieved when this process was introduced, it seems that I am almost forced to go through it, in a positive sense.
Most importantly, the real-life experience of instructors is essential. In addition to own faculty, the program invites external lecturers, who are the icing on the cake. We have enjoyed a number of very interesting, enthusiastic, and skilled lecturers. Some have strong business background, like Kalle Kekkonen, Head of Alliances and Acquisitions at Kone. The acquisition process he introduced shows why Kone has been one of the most successful companies in Finland for years. Kone’s acquisitions seem to be extremely well defined, rooted in Kone’s general strategy, but also strongly taking into account Kone’s local presence. This insightful class was one of the highlights of our autumn studies!
Timo Hyvönen, the Vice President for Professional Services and Operations, at Efecte Corp, gave us a down-to-earth insight to ITIL, a worldwide de facto standard for IT service management as part of our ‘Service Design’ course. According to Timo, IT services designed by ITIL standards are fit for the most demanding tasks, which are not manageable by less comprehensive approaches, since ITIL has a sound instrumentarium of processes to handle multiple variables and levels of tasks.
ITIL also ensures that the services are easily and efficiently developed, utilizing existing resources to the fullest, without reinventing the wheel. Timo’s philosophy for designing IT services is to focus on three key elements: People, Processes, and Tools. But he strongly emphasizes that the customer should never be forgotten.
All in all, adult education is challenging, not only to the teachers but especially to us, students. How can we coordinate work, personal life and studies? Sounds impossible, but with some positive stubbornness, persistence, and flexibility it seems to be fairly possible – at least Metropolia has done a huge work in putting together the schooling that allows us to take our education to the next level.
Kirsi Hoikkala
Industrial Management Master’s programme student at Metropolia
Ei kommentteja