Matias Salminen is a second year International Business student and this year he has been part of the Marketing Ring team as well. When Matias started his studies, he was excited but at the same time he felt uncertain about his English skills. But soon he noticed that you don’t have to be perfect with your English and you can make mistakes. The examples of other students gave him courage to start talking in English and now he has presented in front of class many times!
Vision of studying in English
Hello, my name is Matias Salminen. I currently live in Pirkkala next to Tampere and I am second year student of International Business at HAMK Valkeakoski campus.
After high school I started to think about my future and what I wanted to do. I had this vision of studying something in English but had no idea what and where. I remembered that we had a presentation at our school about studying International Business at HAMK which was done by previous students of our school, so I decided to apply here. I got accepted to HAMK and I was so proud about it. I got accepted in 2017 and I could have started my school then, but I decided to go into the army, and I delayed my school start to 2018.
Gaining courage and making friends
In the summer before the beginning of my first year I started to worry about the fact that, with Finnish student background, are my level of English skills enough for me to communicate with everyone. When the school started, I was excited because it was something that I had never done before but still at the same time I was terrified what would I say and how to pronounce it if I needed to talk. I have always classified myself as a shy person who prefers to wait for the right moment to open my mouth than just babble all the time.
School went on couple of days and I think that the fact that I had made few new friends helped me to get over that uncertain feeling. Seeing everyone else also making mistakes and still trying, gave me the courage to start talking as well. I feel like I have accomplished many life goals here, like having the courage to present in front of class. And I believe there are many to come as well.
”The shy guy has started to disappear”
Now I am second year student, part of the Marketing Ring who visits other schools and tell them about our wonderful school, just like the students that presented HAMK to us. The shy guy has started to disappear. I have had the opportunity to get to know each of our schoolmates and learn about their cultures and how they do things in their country.
To anyone who is interested about our school I would recommend applying here. You don’t need to know everything about business, and you don’t need to have fluent English skills. As long as you’ll be interested to learn about them, I would strongly suggest applying here.
