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<\/p>\nHenrique Hilleshein is already our eighth exchange student from Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IFSC), Brazil. He has spent the last three months in Finland. Luckily, these dark and rainy months didn\u2019t spook him away and he is already planning his return to Finland next year!<\/p>\n
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I am a telecommunications engineering student at Federal Institute of Santa Catarina. From the beginning of my studies, I dreamed about doing an exchange program abroad but I never had a specific country in mind. My university has a bilateral exchange programme with several European universities, and HAMK is one of them. These universities inform IFSC the projects they have available for the exchange students and IFSC relay the information about the projects to the students. The students interested in the program need to choose the project that they want to take part of. The project description I liked the most was this HAMK project, so that\u2019s why I ended up doing my internship at HAMK. The other reason that helped to make this decision was the praised Finnish education system.<\/p>\n
I worked on an IoT platform assessment for educational purposes at the HAMK Smart research unit. My responsibility was to verify the viability of using a proprietary IoT platform to be used as a tool to teach IoT (Internet of Things) to HAMK students. Technology is evolving rapidly and many technologies make people more efficient and provide a more comfortable life. In the next years, IoT will be more present in our lives, so studies and tools for the best use of IoT need to be developed. The IoT concept affects everywhere – from everyday life to the big industries.<\/p>\n
In Brazil, I have never worked in a research unit or for a university. Previously I\u2019ve just worked in private companies, so it is difficult to compare. In Brazil, normally the supervisor keeps a close watch on the employee, but here I notice that the result matters more than the process itself.<\/p>\n
For me, it was the change of scenery. I met a lot of people from Finland and other countries in H\u00e4meenlinna and it was an amazing experience. People are not lying when they say that an experience abroad can open your mind about the world and people.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m planning a return to Finland next year. I received a job proposal together with a master\u2019s degree studies at Oulu University. I\u2019ve already started the visa process and I hope that everything goes fine. I hope that the time I have here during my master, I will get to know Finland better and will also get the chance to visit other European countries.<\/p>\n
I would say just enjoy Finland, try to meet as many new people as possible and travel as much as you can. Even though I worked hard, I also had a lot of spare time to experience new things, so it is a good thing for an international trainee to be curious and embrace the opportunities.<\/p>\n
First, the weather is terrible compared to Brazil weather. Even with this issue, I think that Finland is a good country to live in because of health care, safety and infrastructure. I talked to other Brazilians that are doing exchange here too, and they traveled to many other European countries – all of them had the same conclusion: Finland was the best place to live in Europe compared to the countries that they visited.<\/p>\n
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