School of Business Alumni Advisory Board member's story: Norbert Juhász

In what ways have the studies been useful for your career? What is the significance of the major subject?

First of all, on the whole, my Master’s studies have been useful in that I gained a deeper business knowledge and developed a critical mindset to look at things. Also, it is often required for job applications to have a Master’s degree which my Aalto MSc degree fulfils. Secondly, more concretely from the content, getting practical skills with a particular BI tool during my CEMS Business Project provided some groundwork to become a KONE trainee. This set my initial career direction for me in Finland in the area of data and analytics.

For a foreign graduate who learns Finnish on an intermediate-level and who aims to get a job in English, career opportunities are substantially narrower compared to native Finnish students. If I had had the possibility to freely choose a career path in Finland (where I wanted to stay that time), I would have probably ended up in some other business field. 

As far as I can see, many jobs get allocated in ways where degrees, or even equal opportunity for consideration, do not play a huge role in practice. If I had been a native Finnish speaker after graduation, I would be probably more enthusiastic about the overall usefulness of my studies because I would be likely to have encountered more open doors.

Share something memorable from the time when you were studying.

For this question, three things come to my mind very quickly. Firstly, the student life. It was a fantastic experience to be part of the Aalto student community. The student apartment block where I lived was vibrant of student activity and it was very international. I have to say that in many ways this has been one of the best periods in my life so far. Secondly, I very much enjoyed business competitions that I took part in together with fellow students. I made a few very good friends this way. It was great to travel and work on business cases. Finally, being a student in Finland and being able to do everything in English was not much short of miraculous. I have great respect for Finland for being multilingual, having Finnish and Swedish as official languages, but also English as a de facto third operational language. Most likely due to my background, experiencing this was very memorable to me.

In what ways should the current students take the changes in the business world into consideration in their studies?

I think that there are important trends that are worth to keep an eye on. These trends have future implications on our societies and therefore are worth to incorporate them into the studies in some way. Such trends would be for example the rising importance of sustainability (for instance, to help accelerate the response of business to stop/reverse climate change), artificial intelligence and digitalization (for instance, to help ensure that higher productivity will result in reduced income inequality), diversity and inclusion (for instance, to help promote equality in practice rather than equality in PR statements), and so on. 

You are a member of the Alumni Advisory Board at the School of Business. What does being an alumnus mean to you?

I feel truly honoured that I was invited to join the Alumni Advisory Board. I am very happy that my background was seen valuable for the purpose to contribute to the development of the School of Business this way. Being an alumnus means being part of a community and being part of a shared history with that community. It is a relation that connects to the base definition of who I am and how I have become that person.

Is there something else that you would like to say?

I would like to thank Aalto University for the studies and the overall experience. I had the opportunity to learn from many exceptional professors and broadened my view on the world through them. I am happy to belong to the Aalto alumni community.