My Practical Training for Environmental Engineering started in May. I came home for 2 days before starting my practical Training. After some difficulties in the beginning, due to the postal service of Germany, I started my Practical Training on the 16 of May 2022.
I didn´t start with a complete COVID lock-down, but a Hybrid work, where people could come and go whenever they wanted. I only saw all of my colleagues after two weeks, all together in a room. After that meeting, it was established that we would have two days a week, where all employees should come to the workplace. Without any pressure, people slowly started working at the workplace again. I came to work, nearly every single day, because I had better technology at my workplace desk.
Throughout my Practical Training I took part in biodiversity projects, water drainage issues and renewable energy analysis. These smaller projects were additionally to my bigger task of analyzing the market situations of the different segments of the Environmental Management, by comparing the company’s measures with other companies measures. My work was only dictated by the amount of time I need to work and meetings. It didn’t matter if I showed up at 9 o’clock or 5 o’clock in the morning. In the end I needed to have my amount of 35 hours a week. This gave me a lot of freedom to have free time activities.
I was lucky to get this Practical Training spot in a town, where two of my high school friends started their studies two years ago. I met with their friend groups, discovered the region around the city and enjoyed my summer. I went to bars, museums and into the nature. From start to end of my Practical Training, Corona restrictions were minimized which gave me the time and opportunities to dive into my work, by visiting different locations and enjoy my summer as good as possible.
In comparison to Germany, Finland has less hierarchy. It is interesting, after coming from a university where you call the teacher by their surname, to being formal with your boss and colleagues, with older people and more authorized people. I was lucky, that my field is still evolving and therefore a lot of young people, combined into a small group with not that of a high hierarchy. Without my knowledge of German hierarchy beforehand, it might have been harder to get used to the hierarchy used.
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