The second to last semester is underway until graduation and there are still many things to do. Things such as completing project hours, doing the second learning journey in Latvia, going to the final camp, and doing the thesis. Two and a half years have gone by so fast that these remaining two semesters are going to be over in the blink of an eye. That is why it is important to reflect on these upcoming months.

I am going to start my thesis writing process anytime soon. I have been hesitant about starting it. I have set myself the goal to finish it before going to the summer holidays, but knowing myself I will most probably finish it during the last semester. I have decided my thesis topic to be about drone usage in businesses with a focus on real estate. I am interested both in drones and the real estate business making this thesis process something valuable for me looking for the future.

Project hours are something I must heavily focus on now as it is the area of my HOPS where I am mostly lacking hours. Projects have been a difficult area for me during my studies as I am not someone with project ideas or more importantly, amongst the first ones to offer my help in other people’s projects. If I would now start my studies from the beginning, I would lower my threshold to say yes to project opportunities. Even if they do not fully feel convincing in the beginning, give them a chance. This will make you be in more projects and learn from them to then create your own or have good improvement ideas for others.

Also, another point I have noticed room for improvement is my participation in pajas. I am in all pajas physically, but I am not sure if I´m there mentally as well. My thought has always been that I am a great listener and that I rarely have something to say right on the spot but a while after the discussion. This thought process was for a long time what I believed was my way of contributing to the team. Listen, reflect, and afterward speak out. The speaking out of what I had to say happened very rarely making all the listening useless for the rest of the team. I didn’t contribute to the discussion which is the most valuable thing in a paja environment.

After all of this thought process, I have to change the approach. I should focus on the pre-task heavily and learn about the upcoming paja topic more broadly than before. This would make me soak up the information before the paja itself (replacing the listening time during pajas) and make the paja a time for me to express to others what have I learned. This change would obligate me to know already someway what the discussion is going to look like and be ahead making speaking up much easier. Another point is to make notes during the conversation to then be able to come back to those points during the dialogue.

Our second learning journey in Latvia in April is going to be a great time to broaden our network. We are all most likely going to get a spot for volunteer work in a startup event in Riga called Techchill, which would be great for our team. For my personal development, it would be great to work on a big event like this in another country and see what it takes to organize something like this. It will be a great experience that will be remembered from our time at Proakatemia.

Another trip outside of Finland (hopefully) is going to be the final camp. We have been expressing our will of places that we would like to travel to, but nothing has been booked yet. A tropical island is the dream location, but which one, only time will tell. Are we going to be able to generate an amount of money that will allow us to travel to a nice location? It is a team effort, and the less people are together working for a common goal the closer we are to having our final camp in Finland.