I am only a beginner when it comes to communicating science, but I would argue that almost everything that comes out of a person is some form of communication. Although my own academic communication is mostly limited to essays and theses at a university of applied sciences, perhaps there is considerable value in my very lack of initiation as a communications intern at a research institute: if a relatively average citizen like me, with a fondness for steady club beats, can be made to understand that Future Manufacturing Technologies means, for example, that steel can be 3D printed, then the Institute is doing its job well.
Three months – the duration of my internship – is 0.3 % of the life expectancy of a newborn in Finland in 2024. And since even a seemingly healthy person spends a third of each day asleep, it is fair to ask: how much can you actually learn during an internship?
A lot, if you know how to channel your inner sponge and absorb all the information buzzing around you. An even better starting point is to avoid being unrealistically full of yourself and instead, as a human-sponge hybrid, leave an open and humble space in your mind for all the golden nuggets of knowledge shared by the people at Kerttu Saalasti. I have already had the chance to pick up plenty of these nuggets from my main supervisor, Minna Kilpeläinen, for example. On our trip to Oulainen, I already found myself marvelling at Kerttu Saalasti’s Mona Lisa-like smile and saying how much I appreciate the fact that science has a human face here.
Singer-songwriter Olli Halonen sings about wanting to love and to be loved. I, communications intern Juha Seppänen, on the other hand, declare that I want to benefit and be of benefit. And that is exactly how a successful internship works: instead of becoming a burden, the workplace gains someone who still has something to prove to the world, while the intern gains evidence they can use to sweet-talk their next employer into opening the door.
So may Kerttu Saalasti keep smiling her enigmatic smile, and long may her Institute thrive after this writer’s internship has come to an end.
Author: Juha Seppänen, Bachelor of Culture and Arts, Bachelor of Business Administration student, musician, university intern, Kerttu Saalasti Institute, University of Oulu
Photo: Juha Seppänen
In Kerttu Saalasti Institute's blog we write about the topics of the Institute's research groups, micro entrepreneurship education and the Institute's general topics. The authors are researchers, experts and members of networks.