Letter Home - Jussi Kärkinen

I am currently doing a double-degree in La Rochelle, Excelia Group Business School. In order to acquire the double-degree I have to study in the fourth year for one academic year. The courses we have had have been really great, the school really emphasises on quality learning approaches, we have had professors from all over the globe, for example the U.S, Ireland, Canada, Great Britain just to name a few. Furthermore I would like to point out that we have had a lot of group projects, and I mean a lot of group projects, which has been really beneficial since our class is very culturally diverse.

In Centria, I am studying in the Finnish track of BBA, which is the Tradenomi- program, before going to La Rochelle I had completed one academic year.

The study culture is really present in La Rochelle, our school offers a lot of activities for students, such as sailing, gym, music, La Rochelle itself seemed to be a really student based city, and the city is really lively, there’s a lot of events happening at all times. The group that we have, as I previously mentioned, is really multicultural, we have over 10 nationalities in our class. Overall, I have found my classmates to be really interesting and friendly people.

Typically our school days start quite late, like around 10 – 14 but at the latest we would stay in school until 8pm. Me personally I enjoyed the advantage of sleeping in, so normally I would wake up maybe two hours before going to school, watch some TV, make breakfast and go to school and come home, nothing too special, although occasionally me and my classmates would go to an Irish pub for a drink or two. I enjoy having walks around the harbour and adore the architecture of the boats and the buildings, and also I happen to live about 200 meters away from McDonald’s and Burger King, so sometimes I go there to grab some food.

At first it was hard to get accommodated to studying in a foreign language, all the business lingo was very unfamiliar to me since I had previously studied in Finnish language, but fortunately it was a temporary issue, now I know the words and the definitions of things in English as well.

The thing I have enjoyed the most so far has been the people, everybody is so different and they come from completely different cultures, and that is something I find quite important, being able to learn and exchange experiences from our countries.