Studying Stunning starting salary, secure employment and diverse career opportunities – This is the master builder’s industry, where graduates are torn straight to work.

MetropoliaFifty young people sit in the auditorium of the University of Applied Sciences in Myllypuro, Helsinki.

They are first-year construction management students. The last contact lessons are now being held and we are going through the past fall semester.

Lecturer Jouni Ruotsalainen stands in front of the class and asks: How have the lab jobs gone? What about thermal imaging? The basics of infrastructure? Mathematics and physics? Building a house?

Students answer without taking a course. The atmosphere is conversational and immediate.

“It feels like everyone has done pretty well, but a lot of time has gone into physics,” one says.

“How hard is it to get an internship? It would be good to get the first training done, ”the second asks.

Most of these students graduate as builders. It is a title that allows you to work as surely as the sun rises.

In the future, the young people sitting in the auditorium will lead the construction of Finnish infrastructure from small houses to ice rinks and renovations from cafés to Finlandia Hall.

Builders training ended in Finland in 1996 in connection with the reform of the polytechnic, but the line was reopened in 2007.

Since then, the number of annual starting places at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences has increased from thirty to 150. The aim is to get funding for next year with 180 starting places.

Starting places are being added because there is an acute shortage of foremen in the construction industry. Construction workers are almost torn from study places to construction sites.

Although the construction industry is cyclical, ie the amount of work depends on the current economic situation, there will be no unemployment for construction workers in the future, says lecturer Ruotsalainen.

“Even in the event of an economic downturn, for example due to the retirements of former masters, all possible factors are needed for the job,” he says.

This There is one big reason why, for example Niklas Laine and Jyri Liimata have come to study to be builders.

“The employment outlook was a big criterion,” Laine says.

He entered the school through a double degree, with high school and youth instructor papers. Laine did not have to take the entrance exam, but entered directly with high school papers.

Jyri Liamatta, like many others here, has done a lot of work on the construction site before. Work experience is a big asset in the application process because it earns a lot of points for the selection exam.

In general, according to the Swede, it is not very difficult to get into the line of construction management, although there are more willing than start-up places.

“The exams for the entrance exam, for example, are such that they don’t even need a calculator, but mainly reasoning and logic,” he says.

Construction the aim is to take 60 per cent of the students from the vocational school and 40 per cent from the upper secondary school to the line of study of management.

“The aim is to get people with practical skills and that this would be the way to a university degree for vocational school members. From here, you can still study for a master’s degree, ”says Ruotsalainen.

On the basis of a vocational school, you have to do a little more work, especially at the beginning of your studies, in relation to the upper secondary school base, one student says in the hall.

“There was really no basis for this, not much math, for example. I feel that for someone who has become an amis, it is a bit like coming to see what that high school would have been like. However, it is a university. ”

Still, the students in the class mainly think that they will survive their studies if they only make an effort in front of them.

210 credits are required for the master’s degree, of which 30 are completed in an internship. The target completion time is 3.5 years. According to the Swede, it is not difficult to complete studies in three years and graduation is possible in 2.5 years.

Employment prospects in addition, students in the field are interested in salary.

“This education immediately catches up with a salary level that matches the level of many fields in the university that are incredibly difficult to study. When the starting salary is already high, the development looks good, ”says Laine.

According to the Swede, a builder’s starting salary may well start at three. If you do your job well and on time and receive performance bonuses from the construction site, the salary can be almost 4,000 euros a month right at the beginning of your career.

Students are also interested in the diversity of the work image. Laine, for example, intends to head to the renovation side.

“If you could take charge of a renovation project for a historically valuable building, you would see the mark of your own work for a long time,” he says.

Glue, in turn, intends to pursue an international career.

“If you can pull the construction of a five-star hotel in Singapore as the corresponding foreman, then what’s the point?”

If you don’t want to build, you can go to work on the sales side, because construction skills are needed there as well. Some are also planning to start a business, and the study unit also includes entrepreneurship studies.

The master’s papers have the opportunity to advance to high positions.

“The level of education in the private sector itself doesn’t matter that much, but success depends largely on the factor. The managing director of a large Finnish construction company was a master builder by training, ”says Ruotsalainen.

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“Theory and practice are less likely to fully meet. Self-confidence is important. ”

Master the job is problem solving, planning and summing. The construction site should be made to work seamlessly.

If one thing fails, it will be reflected in the next step. If the logistics at the site produce inconvenience and the work stands still, there will be a rush, and then there may be problems with occupational safety. The schedule and budget can be tight, and the client of the project breathes in the neck. At the worst, of course, some important work machine breaks down.

So the work of a builder can be stressful. However, this does not scare future champions.

“A lot is about the experience and how well you know things and how you are able to manage projects. Theory and practice are less likely to fully meet. Self-confidence is important, ”says Liimata.

“And how many industries where pay and responsibilities are in the same range as in these jobs do not require pressure tolerance?” Laine states.

Both students and lecturer Ruotsalainen emphasize the importance of communication skills and meeting people. A good master is good with people and knows how to listen to these with a sensitive ear.

“It has been emphasized in our teaching for years,” says Ruotsalainen.

People oriented the approach is relatively new in the construction industry.

Back in the early 1980s, for example, there was little talk of communication and meeting people in education – they weren’t part of the crude world of construction, where know-how was the only thing that mattered.

As a result, many construction sites have been managed for so-called decades leadership by pervele principle. Construction sites have traditionally been places where a man dressed in dirty clothes lowers the compressive strength of concrete, swears and carries large and heavy sacks.

Such a picture is already a thing of the past, say Laine, Liimata and the Swede.

“No matter how good you are at work, if you’re a dick, then you’re not good at that job because the work is done with people. A team with a good captain plays well together, ”says Laine.

In the auditorium there are only a few female hypotheses among the dozens of students. At the moment, 10 percent of the students on the master’s side are women, according to the Swede. On the engineering side, women make up 30 percent.

The scarcity of women may be due to the culture that has existed in the construction world, at least in the past. As Laine puts it bluntly, sometimes it can even be misogynistic.

The situation has been consciously improved for some time now, says lecturer Ruotsalainen.

“The construction companies have taken it seriously, and everyone is on the same level today. That so-called ‘egg’ is certainly no longer needed on construction sites, or at least should not be needed. ”

Laine agrees. According to him, it is worth experimenting with the construction industry, be it a man, a woman or a man of the opposite sex.

“There is a need in the industry for all good masters and staff – different people. There are still those thunderstorms out there, but surely current and future factors will change that culture. ”