My dear friends Julia and Doneé were sitting in a cafe they were leaving and I came randomly there. Naturally, I asked them what they were doing, and they said me they were reserving flight tickets to this entrepreneurship course in Germany that was happening soon. Doneé then got the idea that I could apply as well although the application process itself was closed. So I emailed Kaisa, the organizer of this course and after a week, I got a call that there would be a place for one. of course, I said yes!

Little did a know what experience was waiting for me. I took the flight to Münich and took a train from there to Stuttgart. German railways have quite a similar reputation as our railway but apparently, it can be even worse at times. The trains themselves were really nice. Then after a few hours of traveling, I arrived at Stuttgart. Stuttgart is a city of 660 thousand people and with a really strong automotive influence as brands such as Porsche have their factory, headquarters, and museum and Mercedes-Benz have their headquarters and museum there. For me of course it´s awesome! 🙂 The first night we spent in the Stuttgart student hotel which was really affordable. Then the next two days we spent in Pfronstetten which was a really beautiful place on higher grounds.

Before we arrived in Germany we had to pitch problems and then when the week started we made teams and tried to get people interested in our problem-solving ideas. Once we got our team solved we started working together on different canvas that our coaches gave us. Then after this, we pitched our final product one at a time. I was pitching our idea and when our turn came I froze! First time huh? Yeah this happened I couldn´t remember anything my heart was going crazy it was hard to keep my focus and I started to read straight from the paper. Damn. So what happened? What happened was that I was too stressed to make sure I say everything the way we scripted it so I messed it up. HOW CAN YOU AND I AVOID THIS? Yes, so the way you do it you take 3-4 main points that you can remember and then teach yourself with the information you have and explain it the way you would do for your friend or family. Of course, pitching has its techniques but it´s good to imagine it this way.

OK, I´m not traumatized not at all. But yes although it was an unpleasant experience it was the most meaningful learning experience I had on the trip. After this, we went to see caves in Pfronstetten which we Finns who spend a lot of time in nature seemed to enjoy the most. Pfrornstetten was really nice experience but it was nice to go back to Stuttgart. there we would spend the rest of the week. Friday was my favorite day because we went to see different companies around Stuttgart which interested me a lot. One of them was an organization just like Platform 6 in Tampere we got to know new people and maybe have future contacts. Like I told earlier what really interests me about Germany is the automotive industry. Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, BMW, VW, Etc. are engineered and produced in Germany. Wich for me gives a great market of opportunities as I want to work with cars in the future. I would be interested to work on organizing events or when auto manufacturers go to events be the organizer of these appearances. At the moment I work for Polestar as a test drive specialist and I think this gives me a good start for the industry.

So as the headline stated if you have some chance to go abroad during your studies go for it f* the business we have time to do it. 🙂