To promote additional training, to contact with the business world and to grow as future professionals are the main reasons that bring Técnico students to the AESE Summer School. Eight students from Técnico attended this year’s edition and six of them received collective and individual awards. According to Bernardo Valente, António Fallah and Teresa Cardoso, three awarded students, the learning outcomes was the most important thing.
About 42 students had the opportunity to participate in theoretical and practical activities during two weeks. The first week was more theoretical and included several classes and lectures. In the second week, which was more practical, the students visited different companies (Cisco, Aki, Stradivarius, Benfica TV and grupo Luís Simões), in order to learn more about their structure and to identify each company’s strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the week a development plan will be elaborated by each group regarding one of these visited companies.
“Awesome is the right word to describe this Summer School”, says António Fallah, an Aerospace Engineering student. “The relaxed atmosphere between students, tutors and faculty helped us a lot”. According to the Aerospace Engineering student “the importance of forming a multidisciplinary team” was the more important thing. “Having fun with all team members but also listening to them, understand their goals and trust in the abilities of each one” was the reason why António Fallah won the best Shareholder award.
Teresa Cardoso, a Biomedical engineering final year student, heard about AESE Summer School from her older sister who attended the first edition. She decided to participate because she wanted to learn more about Business, Management, Marketing, “to understand how companies really work” and “learning to work in mixed-age work teams from different areas of expertise”. According to Teresa Cardoso, who was part of the winning team representing Stradivarius, “we spoke one after another on different topics in a way that seemed a little bit random and dynamic, and maybe that’s why we have succeeded”.
Bernardo Valente, a Telecommunications Engineering student, was part of a team that won the best team award representing Benfica TV. According to the Técnico student, the team’s strategy was “very simple”: “be creative and have fun. I was lucky because I was part of a group of talented and funny people”, stresses Bernardo Valente. “We made a funny video and we decided to expand Benfica TV to China because we thought that it was something innovative”, he recalls. This practical component of the course and the learning that results from it gave Bernardo Valente a new “way of thinking”: “Now I have a very different way of looking at the business world”.
Some days after this experience, the three students recommend this Summer School to other students. “It´s very important to broaden your horizons and complement engineering”, says António Fallah. “Being a Técnico student helped me to succeed in this course, both in terms of organisation and autonomy”, says Teresa Cardoso.
