Active and exciting socialising at the international summer schools of TUAS
This summer three summer schools took place at Turku University of Applied Sciences; Innovative Work Organisations, Mental Health, Crises and Recovery and International Game Development, which was organised in cooperation with the University of Turku and Turku GameLab.
Altogether 26 students participated in the summer schools. The students came from all parts of the world: Azerbaidžan, Austria, Germany, Belarus, Japan, Spain, Italy, Canada and Finland.
Uniting social programme
On top of the intensive workshops and teamwork, the students had the chance to enjoy an active social programme. During the few weeks’ stay the students visited Naantali on the steamship S/S Ukkopekka, explored what the traditional Finnish sauna is all about and enjoyed the August sun in the archipelago of Turku, among many other activities.
Especially the Finnish sauna night at Ruissalo Island was a big hit amongst the students. The traditional evening included going to the sauna, swimming in the sea, eating Finnish sausages, drinking a sauna beer and playing ‘mölkky’, a traditional Finnish outdoor game.
"It was so much fun! I’ve never swam naked in the sea before,” says Georg Schlagholz, one of the students who participated in the International Game Development course.
One of the students on the Innovative Work Organisations course, Zirgham Mohd, was especially impressed with the events of the Turku Night of Arts.
“I loved the Turku Night of Arts. We have music festivals in India and Canada, but the way this event was organized was really unique,” says Mohd, who studies in Canada but originally comes from India. “You could just walk around the city and people were playing music and doing all kinds of performances all around you."
Naming innovations
Some of the objectives of the course were to name recent innovations in the students’ own field and act innovatively and creatively in teams. During the Night of Arts the students got a first-hand experience of a new and exciting innovation.
”We stumbled upon an art installation called Brain Poetry. They put a device on the user’s head, and it measures your brainwaves, and based on the number of waves the computer generates an individual poem for each user. It was so fascinating,” Mohd says. “These kinds of things tell me that Finnish people are all about education and innovations.”
Overall the summer schools were a success. Both students and faculty members were happy about the great atmosphere among the participants and how well everyone worked together.
Networking in the gaming world
In addition to the common social programme, the students of Turku GameLab were able to participate in the summer party organized by IGDA Finland. The event was sponsored by Supercell and was held in Helsinki. Similar networking evenings are also organized regularly in Turku.
“IGDA Finland Turku Hub organizes meetings on a monthly basis. People go to these meetings to talk about everything that is going on in the gaming industry,” says Taisto Suominen, one of the lecturers of the course. “When we found out about the event organized by Supercell, we thought it would be a great experience for our international students.”
The students of the summer school and thirty other enthusiastic game developers from Turku joined together for the event. Both students and workers of the field alike participated in the summer party.
“Some of the students found it a little bit challenging to go and speak to the people at the event. Luckily they had the chance to hear all about working in the gaming field from our former students who work in big game development organisations,” Suominen says.
