Tämä teksti on osa Työelämäblogi -sarjaa, jossa AYY:n yhteistyöyritykset kertovat toimialoistaan, toiminnastaan ja työllistymismahdollisuuksistaan.

Highlights of a day in Vaisala product development. Pictures and stories are by our former Giant Leap summer interns Timo V. and Timo K. who are now developing products for our industrial customers.

CEN Offering is the place where ideas are developed to actual final products. To accomplish the goal, hard work and smart people (you?) are needed. And some coffee.

It’s surprising how many fields of science are covered in Vaisala. We can start from thin film chips and wonder how their nanometer scale layers interact. The spectral range of one micrometer is full of information. The inaccuracy of one millimeter can ruin your miniaturized optical measurement and ten centimeters may mean a lot in the dynamics of measured fluid. How is electricity conducted through these structures? Is heat dissipated well enough? What are their optical properties and how do they respond to ambient conditions? Why are the results of computer simulations different to experiments? And the most important question: How could a little giant leaper know all of this?

First of all, you can’t and you are not even expected to know.  But, if your studies have dealt with such subjects you will learn. And it’s a great motivator that these problems have a true meaning for real products. Vaisala really invests in product development and is therefore a very interesting place for students starting their working careers.

Vaisala’s own cleanroom facilities allow us to design and test different thin film structures for our sensors. The mysterious peak won’t stay hidden from Timo K.

In addition to different fields of science and technology you may find yourself working on different levels of R&D. It can be basic research focusing on e.g. literature research, computational simulations and early phase prototyping. Or it can be closer to final products having the emphasis on reliability testing, their statistical analysis and improving the processibility of different parts. Both hands-on tasks and data handling are needed. All these steps affect each other so you are encouraged to follow also your colleagues’ work and report results of your own. All in all you will see how your skills are valued. And so they are not only the products that are developing but also your own competence.

Trust me – I speak from experience. I started here as a Giant Leap intern 18 months ago and have already faced the topics mentioned above. And this has been only everyday life of the controlled environment business area. Vaisala’s other business area, weather, would broaden the playground even more. Sure your path will be different but not less diverse. I had a master’s degree in physical chemistry when I started and now my know-how has extended to areas I knew nothing about before.

Timo Venäläinen / Giant Leap intern 2013

After a few test rounds the chip structure is optimized, as Irene (Giant Leaper 2010) here has just found out.

I started my career with Vaisala as a Giant Leap intern in the summer of 2013. I must admit, that after four years of intensive studying at the School of Electrical Engineering of the Aalto University my mindset was rather technical. At those times, if someone would have asked me about which study field is the most important, I would have told them hands down that it was technology and engineering. I was, to some extent, a bit narrow minded.

Fortunately, during the summer internship my eyes began to open up. One of the best part about the Giant Leap internship is the diversity you get to be a part of: your fellow interns are not only from your field of studies. During the joint project review sessions, we got to learn what other schools are actually about in addition to getting to know each other. It didn’t take long for me to push my prejudice aside and acknowledge that also non-engineers can be super smart and that there’s a great professional demand for them! Shortly after this I began to realize, that Vaisala is actually filled with pretty talented people. It was very important for me to learn that a company consists of much more than merely product development. Since I had been focusing only on engineering in my studies, it was a real eye-opener to actually see the slot that engineering takes in the big picture of a company. Seeing the big picture also helped me to find my own role in the company.

In further tests Timo V. (Giant Leaper 2013) makes sure that the electrical properties of the chips are ok. Yep, it’s linear!

It has been over a year now since the summer internship ended for me. Since then, I’ve completed my Master’s thesis for Vaisala and I’m currently working here as a Research Scientist. I’m very fortunate to have an interesting position, where I can fully utilize the knowledge I’ve spent so many acquiring at the University. It’s very motivating for me to be able to contribute to the sensor chip development in one of the leading MEMS sensor companies. Regardless though, of what you learn by getting your degree, the learning never stops. The ability to continuously learn is perhaps even more important than the traditional competence which we all learn at school (although you always need a strong basic knowledge of your field).

Vaisala is a great place to be when it comes to learning new things. Our wide product range necessitates an equally wide knowledge range, which means that we have a lot of professionals in the company. No matter how tricky of a problem you’ll run into, you can be sure that within a 10 minutes walk you’ll find someone with extensive knowledge on the issue. It’s hard not to enjoy working in a company where you’re surrounded by cool and smart people.

Timo Kerola / Giant Leap Intern 2013

Almost ready! Should we prefer a white or blue package? Plastic or metal? Just make sure it’s RoHS compatible.

The application period for Giant Leap Summer Internship  program 2015 starts on January 8^th and ends on February 8^th 2015. For more information, visit www.vaisala.com/giantleap and find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/VaisalaGiantLeap to stay in the loop of the recruitment process.

Vaisala is a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement. Vaisala employs over 1,600 professionals in 15 countries, and serves customers in more than 150 countries each year. Vaisala’s technologies provide information on weather and other environmental phenomena for meteorologists, road authorities, wind farms, and tightly controlled industrial environments, for example.

Being international means understanding and accepting difference, it means new ways of thinking, putting yourself into other peoples shoes. Being international means contacts all over the world, having someone to welcome you anywhere you go. Even if you go to a completely new place, being international means being open in your attitude towards new encounters and new friends, it means stepping out of your familiar comfort zone.

These are all fancy and rose-colored ideas of being international. But it’s not only that, there are also many studies that show it really pays off to be international. Let us quote a few studies for you.

According to a recent study commissioned by the European Commission, mobile students have on average better employability skills after a stay abroad than 70% of all students. The study concentrated on EU’s crown jewel mobility program called Erasmus, but it’s results are applicable to any study/work period abroad. The study was the biggest ever published and it surveyed both mobile and non-mobile students, alumni, employers and higher education institutions. The skills important to employers are also the skills that improve during a study period abroad. The study reveals, that mobile students return not only more confident, more open to new cultures, but also quicker in problem solving, better equipped to adapt to new situations and with improved organisational skills. 64% of employers say that international experience is important in recruitment.

The study also revealed that 93% of mobile students can easily imagine living abroad in the future, compared to 78% of non-mobiles. Every third mobile student also states they met their current life partner when studying abroad. This same study also found out, that at the moment there are 1 million Erasmus-babies! Student mobility is excellent in bringing cultures and nationalities together.

This theme has also been studied in Finland with the aim of revealing the secret skills of mobile students. Centre for international mobility (CIMO) and Demos Helsinki explored competences developed through international experiences by asking employers and students to name the attributes they associate them with. Traditional understanding of international experience includes language skills, wide networks within one’s field, understanding of international business, ability to work with multiple people and having lived or studied abroad.

Based on the report Hidden Competencies the traditional view of international skills is still valid, including experience of working or studying abroad, willingness to travel and language skills. A new observation is that people also link many other attributes to international experience. Placing value on international experience in the recruitment process is associated with appreciation of attributes, such as creativity, networking ability, communication skills, ability to think outside one’s sphere of experience and general interest in new things.

According to the report skills and knowledge that result from international experiences are the kind of competences that the labour market needs to be able to face future challenges successfully. But often in recruitment we seem to be incapable of recognising these competences; they are hidden. For this reason, even ‘international’ employers are not necessarily able to give credit to competences acquired through international experiences in their recruitment processes. It is important to make these competences visible, recognize them and describe them better.

After hearing the results of these studies, we’re sure you’re all excited about embracing the international atmosphere of AYY’s international theme week. You may see the full programme of the week on facebook.

For further information:

• Erasmus Impact Study
• Press release: Erasmus Impact Study confirms EU student exchange scheme boosts employability and job mobility
• Report Hidden competencies (in Finnish)