Whew! Finally some time to catch our breath. I won't lie, I am totally exhausted but still running off of excitement for just being here. Let me catch up on what's been goin' down abroad here in Estonia:
Last week was shortly less than insane. Not only did we cram in our final client project, report and presentation, but we also met with variety of Estonian businesses (Microsoft Estonia, Enterprise Estonia, business newspapers, etc).
We learned lots about the e-Estonia concept too. It's amazing how Estonians can do everything online, even start a business (it takes 18 minutes online!). They can also vote and access records. They can even look up other citizen's backgrounds and such too. One lady at an IT Demo place showed us a huge business man's detailed profile, which was really interesting just because here in Estonia, there is so much more transparency than in the US. I feel like the whole week was a plot to get us to move here.
Anyways, in the middle of all the lectures and stuff, we also had a huge report to write up and present to our client on Thursday. In case I haven't already talked about it, the main focus of this class is a client project for Like A Local Guide who is stationed in Tallinn, Estonia. It's a group of young Estonians who wish to help travelers find places to eat, stay and things to do - super cool. We conducted usability testing in a group project setting on their websites: I was in charge of testing the Like a Local Guide site with 2 others. (Please visit the site, it is honestly super cool, I loved working with them too).
Anyways. Not gonna lie, I think we were all pretty nervous about the whole thing. We had 3 straight days of scrambling to get everything together, especially since it was a real life client project, not some random class assignment. In the end, we all bought a liter of cider each and cranked it out together:
After it was all done, I think that the client was really pleased with our work. In fact, we all dressed up for the presentation and made sure to be professional, and when we walked into their office, they had us take off our shoes and sit in bean bag chairs. So that was nice, and really reduced the stress of the whole thing.
Overall, I feel like the client project was an unmatchable experience. I got a ton of good experience working on a diverse team for it, and I also feel so good now that it's over and we can enjoy the rest of our trip.
Speaking of enjoying our trip, Friday after everything was done, we all decided to take a "tour" from our client. This so-called tour is called the "Pub Crawl" for a reason. And yes, our professor came along too, and in fact was probably the most excited about it. I won't go into detail, but here's a few pics to sum it up:
Bright and early the next morning, me and 3 other people in our group made our one free day into a day trip to Helsinki, Finland. We adventured around the city from roughly 10AM till 8PM, and were exhausted afterwards. It was a blast though, the weather was perfect, and we all even got a little sun. It was probably my favorite day over here so far.
We ended up all crashing on the ferry ride home and are still recovering from all the sun and walking. I loved the city itself though, can't wait to explore it more with my parents in a week and a half!
Now I sit in our hostel in Tartu, Estonia. I'm exhausted, as is everyone else. But we have a walking tour tomorrow morning, and from what I can tell after being here for half a day, I love Tartu. It is way more of a university town than Tallinn, and it's way less urban. And I truly appreciate that since all the skyscrapers and people were getting old for me... I need some trees and grass at some point.
Wow I just wrote a novel so I think I'll try to post more often with less words in the future! If you made it till now, you're probably my mom ;) well, off to dinner soon (gonna go grab some pizza with the girls) then early bedtime. Tomorrow we're up and at em to start our next little assignment: International Resumes. Peace.
Last week was shortly less than insane. Not only did we cram in our final client project, report and presentation, but we also met with variety of Estonian businesses (Microsoft Estonia, Enterprise Estonia, business newspapers, etc).
We learned lots about the e-Estonia concept too. It's amazing how Estonians can do everything online, even start a business (it takes 18 minutes online!). They can also vote and access records. They can even look up other citizen's backgrounds and such too. One lady at an IT Demo place showed us a huge business man's detailed profile, which was really interesting just because here in Estonia, there is so much more transparency than in the US. I feel like the whole week was a plot to get us to move here.
Anyways, in the middle of all the lectures and stuff, we also had a huge report to write up and present to our client on Thursday. In case I haven't already talked about it, the main focus of this class is a client project for Like A Local Guide who is stationed in Tallinn, Estonia. It's a group of young Estonians who wish to help travelers find places to eat, stay and things to do - super cool. We conducted usability testing in a group project setting on their websites: I was in charge of testing the Like a Local Guide site with 2 others. (Please visit the site, it is honestly super cool, I loved working with them too).
Anyways. Not gonna lie, I think we were all pretty nervous about the whole thing. We had 3 straight days of scrambling to get everything together, especially since it was a real life client project, not some random class assignment. In the end, we all bought a liter of cider each and cranked it out together:
After it was all done, I think that the client was really pleased with our work. In fact, we all dressed up for the presentation and made sure to be professional, and when we walked into their office, they had us take off our shoes and sit in bean bag chairs. So that was nice, and really reduced the stress of the whole thing.
Overall, I feel like the client project was an unmatchable experience. I got a ton of good experience working on a diverse team for it, and I also feel so good now that it's over and we can enjoy the rest of our trip.
Speaking of enjoying our trip, Friday after everything was done, we all decided to take a "tour" from our client. This so-called tour is called the "Pub Crawl" for a reason. And yes, our professor came along too, and in fact was probably the most excited about it. I won't go into detail, but here's a few pics to sum it up:
The crew, including 2 Germans and a tour guide, outside of an Old Town pub
me, Hailey and Katelyn after stop #1 of the tour
We managed to find some Waldos towards the end of the tour!
Bright and early the next morning, me and 3 other people in our group made our one free day into a day trip to Helsinki, Finland. We adventured around the city from roughly 10AM till 8PM, and were exhausted afterwards. It was a blast though, the weather was perfect, and we all even got a little sun. It was probably my favorite day over here so far.
Helsinki
We ended up all crashing on the ferry ride home and are still recovering from all the sun and walking. I loved the city itself though, can't wait to explore it more with my parents in a week and a half!
Now I sit in our hostel in Tartu, Estonia. I'm exhausted, as is everyone else. But we have a walking tour tomorrow morning, and from what I can tell after being here for half a day, I love Tartu. It is way more of a university town than Tallinn, and it's way less urban. And I truly appreciate that since all the skyscrapers and people were getting old for me... I need some trees and grass at some point.
Wow I just wrote a novel so I think I'll try to post more often with less words in the future! If you made it till now, you're probably my mom ;) well, off to dinner soon (gonna go grab some pizza with the girls) then early bedtime. Tomorrow we're up and at em to start our next little assignment: International Resumes. Peace.
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