Our Experience in Oulu!

After some days back home, we have been able to reflect on what this experience has been like.

Here is our video talking  about it!

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EP Javeriana visits OSAO in Oulu, Finland

In March, a group of 12 students and 2 teachers from EP Javeriana packed their bags and headed North — way North! Our destination? Oulu, Finland to visit our friends from OSAO! ❄️

This was our first international trip as a group, and we couldn’t have asked for a better experience. From the moment we landed, our Finnish hosts at OSAO made us feel completely welcome. We shared classes, worked on joint projects, visited local companies… and even got to experience a real Finnish sauna (yes, we jumped into ice hole!)

It was very interesting to get a real experience in Finnish education system. Our students participated in their Hackathon project (Problem Based Learning methodology) integrated in mixed groups. The solutions our 8 teams proposed to the real companies challenges were very creative and helpful. Congratulations!

But we also made amazing memories: bowling together, slipping on icy sidewalks, and admiring the Northern Lights in the sky walking on the frozen sea.

Most of all, this trip helped us grow as people and as professionals. We stepped out of our comfort zones, practiced our English and deepen our friendship with our Finnish colleagues.

We’re already dreaming about the next exchange! Watch our video to find out more about it.💫

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FINSPAIN TIB: THREE SCHOOL YEARS WORKING TOGETHER

A couple of weeks ago we experienced the third year of the FINSPAIN TIB project between the students and teachers of OSAO and Javerianas School.  This was the first time that we could meet in person but this project has been developing and evolutioning over the last 3 years. 

I've been fortunate enough to see it since the very first time, it consisted of online meets evolving the development of joint projects between some of the students at their school and us. It was very well planned and executed by the teachers of both schools but of course improving of the first year and optimizing every part of the experience.

This year the project evolved a lot as the project is now presential for the students both of Spain and Finland, first they came to Madrid in late November and then it is turn for us to go there at early march. This is a huge step for the connection between the schools that is very much enjoyed and appreciated by all the people involved. Following the latest visit of the finnish and the activities done, we can say that the project is growing exponentially and can be an amazing learning opportunity for both parts. We are proud that we were part of this and hope it continues like this, getting better every year!!

By Santiago Castro

LAST YEAR ONLINE EXPERIENCE:

We worked online on two different sessions, the first one was to get to know eachother and the second one, each group of students presented a project they were working on in class:

Session 1

In the first session, we presented ourselves to the Finnish students explaining some characteristics of our country, city and school. Then we talked in more detail about our class, International Trade Year 1 and our experiences during the course. Also, the Finnish students explained to us about Finland and their school, OSAO.

Finlandia de Alexandra Leyva Molina

By Alexandra Ramírez, Valeria Dueñas and Irene Muñoz

Session 2

In the second session of FINSPAIN, we worked on our “Shopping in Madrid” project, that talked about all the different commercial areas all over around our city. We started with research, dividing ourselves into 5 different groups to explore those areas and gather information and pictures. Later on we built a presentation based on that information and showed it to our Finnish friends before having them show us their business project. It was a very fun project that required everyone's full cooperation and ended up being a huge success.

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Finspain Together In Busines #TIB finalists in the Espiral International Awards

 

EPJaveriana & OSAO Finland are Espiral International Awards Finalists! 🏆

The Escuela Profesional Javeriana and OSAO, Finland, got finalists in the International Espiral Awards with our project, Finspain Together In Business (#TIB).

We are really thrilled since ther
e were really amazing projects participating. Congratulations to all of the winners.

We are very proud of our project, which is all about teaming up and learning about business cultures. We're bringing students from different parts of the world together and showing how international business can be a real adventure. Congratulations to all of them for their great job!

Watch our project video:

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FINSPAIN #TIB: SHOPPING IN OULU AND MADRID (PART III)

Third videoconference session: Final presentation

Finally, after all the work together, we had the chance to present our final result to the rest of the teams and teachers participating in this proyect. 

We explained our topics and commented on the differences and similarities between the shops in Spain and Finland. We were nervous but we are proud of our result.

Afterwards, another team gave us feedback and it was very interesting and helpful hearing their opinion.

After our presentations, we created a word cloud:

Evaluation

Once we had finished our presentations, we had a discussion session in class evaluating our project and giving feedback about our experience and how to improve it. We also talked about everything we learned working on FinSpain TIB.

Here are some of the ideas we shared about what we learned. If you click on the image you can access all the information.

 

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FINSPAIN #TIB: SHOPPING IN OULU AND MADRID (PART II)

We continued our international adventure during the whole month of March. Our next steps were:

Gathering information: Field work

Friday 3rd of March we used our 2 hours of English class to go to the shops and gather information about prices, products and schedules. 

We took pictures of the shops and  different products.  Some of us also talked with the workers and asked for information about the products. It was fun!

Afterwards we prepared a presentation that we shared with our teammates in Finland through the common Teams Channel.

Second videoconference session: working together

In the second session we presented and combined the information that each subgroup had researched and then we compared the businesses, their location, their opening hours, etc. We split up the slides, checked the length of the presentation, and rehearsed.

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FINSPAIN #TIB: SHOPPING IN OULU AND MADRID (PART I)

This is our class: International Trade 1 in EP. Javeriana and we would like to tell you about our project #Finspain #TogetherInBusiness #TIB.

Introduction

We worked on a combined project with students from OSAO Vocational School in Finland and from EPJaveriana in Madrid.

It was really exciting since we worked in small groups with students from Finland and Spain to be able to analyse commercial information in both countries. 

The project consisted in comparing different stores and products of Spain and Finland and there were eight different groups who worked on these different topics:

First videoconference session: meeting our teammates

On the first session, we were very nervous, because we did not know what we were going to find. 

Previously, in class we had worked on a presentation where we talked about Spain, its culture and what we liked the most. We also talked about the degree we studied, its subjects and what we could work on once we finished our studies.

Then we watched a video, where teamwork was represented, and with it a brainstorming where we put the necessary points for teamwork to be good.

And with an application we created the logo of our team and we named it. We were able to share a nice moment with our team mates in Finland and get to know them a little bit.

We will let you know about our next steps soon!!!

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#Finspain Together in Business, our international project with Finland

Hello, we are the International Trade 2 students from EPJ and we wanted to share our project with you, and all the things we’ve learned from it. 

INTRODUCTION

We’ve been working with OSAO Vocational College, a school in Finland with students from International Business. We’ve done a project together about our cultures and the different forms of negotiation of each country. We had a videoconference with them twice and it was so interesting preparing it and talking with them.

WE MEET EACHOTHER

We first prepared a presentation to introduce ourselves and our school that we would present by videoconference. We divided all the topics between the members of the different groups,  assigning the work we should do in each team, then we prepared a presentation on google slides with visual resources to show our knowledge and make it easier to present.

Later on, we practiced the presentations twice, the first one in class and the second one at the assembly hall, like a simulation.

We learned about how to interact with Finnish people in a business environment and 

about their languages, business culture and customs. 

Especially how they organize their schedule, manners and clothes in different situations.

RESEARCH ON BUSINESS CULTURES

Once we attended the first video conference, we started to research information in several Finnish business sites about the business culture of this country. During our research we have noticed the cultural differences between our countries and how negotiations are conducted in both places.

We have learned things like the importance of etiquette and silence in negotiations, their conservative and close nature, which highly contrasts with the Mediterranean temperament and makes people from both nations find a point to understand each other and have a great business relationship.

When we collected all the information about Finnish business culture, we prepared a presentation which we later shared via video conference with OSAO students and teachers. Our presentation consisted of explaining the information searched the days before. All of us participated in the presentation and they confirmed us our topics were accurate.

FINAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

At the end of the meeting, we had the opportunity to discuss with them some different points about their culture (fashion, saunas…). Some of our classmates asked them some questions.

They told us how they handled the covid situation in their school and it was very similar to Spain. It was funny when they told us that for them it was easier to maintain social distance, because they are always respecting each other's personal space.

They were also interested in some things related to Spanish culture. Mainly they thought that the covid situation affected business relationships since Spaniards highly value physical contact. Related to the last question, they also asked if lunch business meetings were common. They thought it was interesting since they don’t usually mix meetings with personal time. 

It was a fruitful conversation for both parties, where we could dig deeper in both cultures and get a better understanding of how both cultures work despite our obvious differences.

Afterwards we analyzed the project and here are our conclusions. You can click on the pictures to see our results better.

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