Summer blog: Aktia was the right place to start my career

A summer job can be a good source of income for many students, but often that is not all that is. The summer job that you happened to land can also be a solid foundation for your career to build upon. This was especially true in my case, because I have just recently graduated from my university and I was looking for a stable job position without having too much work experience in the field of IT. Before my first day started, I had been wondering how my career would go. But in retrospect, it was an unnecessary concern.

As soon as I started working here, I realized that this was the right place for me to grow. I was given the right amount of work that was appropriate to my current skill level, an excellent balance of autonomy and support, and the chance to grow in the first place.

At first, I got overwhelmed by the amount of code that I saw in the project; after all, school assignments and actual work are two different things. Still, once I took a closer look at the series of tasks that was assigned to me, I noticed that it was arranged for me in a systematic manner, whose complexity would gradually increase, which provides me with a reasonable learning curve.  

I was basically supposed to work on the tasks on my own, but my colleagues were mostly always ready to help me out whenever needed. This reminds me of some of the comments from “former summer trainees” when I joined an online meeting of Aktia, where some of them mentioned that the working environment is very supportive. Now I can also tell from my own experience that it is true.

Another thing that I found myself fortunate with is that Aktia kept the job position open to everybody.  Being a non-EU citizen who originally comes from Japan, I was worried if I could find any job after graduating from university here in Finland in the first place, because I occasionally found some news articles which tell that foreigners tend to struggle to get a job. But Aktia blew away my concern not only by the equality in the recruitment process but also by their speed in handling the paperwork. I really liked the quickness because my previous residence permit was only valid until the middle of August, so if the process had been slow that could have caused me trouble. When I was offered an official full-time position, I didn’t have to wait too much before I got a work contract signed. That allows me to continue to work in Finland even after my summer trainee period is over, which gives me a huge relief.

Now that I’m in the right environment, I’m eager to learn even more. It’s also exciting to get to know other teammates here. Making efforts is of course important, but where you make efforts is equally crucial in your life.

 I hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful summer.

Shinichi Takagi

Summer Trainee, Software Developer