I study
tourism in Karelia University of Applied Sciences, and I did my third-year
internship in the “Contemporary Old City: Enhancing cultural tourism across the
border” project (Karelia ENPI CBC). I chose to do my internship in the project
because I wanted some new experiences and my previous knowledge of working in the
project was mainly from my studies, so it was not very extensive. I found this
project from our school’s website, and it whetted my appetite for getting more
information about it.
This
project is closely connected with my studies, mainly because they cover tourism.
With them, I learnt about international cooperation, as the project is about
developing culture tourism across borders, which means collaboration between
North Karelia in Finland and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. I found out how
different cultures have influence over the cooperation and how different
working habits may set some challenges. But I also found out how rewarding
successful cooperation between different cultures can be.
During my
internship, I got to do a lot of different things. For instance I planned
marketing, helped to arrange a conference, helped to develop websites for
travelers, went through some promotional and other materials produced in the project
and took part in developing a new tourist route. I’m glad that I got to do some
concrete things, instead of just listening and standing by. I have a feeling
that everything I did was useful, at least to some extent. I was given as much
responsibility as I was ready to take, but I also got support and help every
time I needed.
In my
opinion, I benefitted a lot from this internship. I learnt a lot about planning
and arranging an event – there’s a surprising number of little things that we
usually don’t even think about. During the arrangements of the conference, my
knowledge about the network of regional operators increased, and, while
evaluating the usability of the VisitKarelia website and developing the new
tourist route, my knowledge about the region improved.
Besides
that, I got to do different kinds of tasks and, for example, took part in
meetings, I found out what working in a project is in reality. My instructors
told me for instance about the budget and cooperation with project partners. I
realized how much concrete output these kinds of projects actually produce. I’m
sorry to admit, but I thought that project outputs are usually more like projections,
but at least in this project something concrete was done. I believe that our outputs
will enhance cultural tourism in North Karelia and in the Republic of Karelia.
It was kind
of challenging to join a project that had already been going on for a while. What
made it challenging was knowing everybody involved. But little by little I got
to know new people and found out how they were linked to this project.
At some
times during my studies I felt convinced I would never work in a project
because project work seemed to me monotonous, discontinuous and not that
productive or rewarding. This internship changed my mind. Now I actually can see
myself working in some interesting project. Only precondition would be that it
would involve something in practice and less sitting in the office. These days,
working from home is often an alternative for working in an office. In this
project, I had an opportunity to try working from home. It was a good
experiment: I just needed to make sure that I had tasks to do (there was always
something, so that wasn't a problem), and things would get done. I learnt that
some tasks are easier to complete in an office and some tasks are better done at
home.
Even though
my internship took two months, I think I only scratched the surface of project
work in its entirety. But, nevertheless, I can warmly recommend projects
(especially this one) as training jobs!
Thank you,
Anu, Erja and Timo, for these past two months and for this rich experience.
Have a
sunny spring!
Elina
Hämäläinen
Third-year student
in Karelia UAS, Tourism (Marketing)
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