What do I want to do with my life?
At 16 or 17, this is suddenly no longer a distant question. University choices are approaching, adults are asking about plans, and young people are surrounded by ideas about careers and what they should do next.
For some, the answer comes easily. For most, it doesn’t.
This was the starting point for a Creative in Finland experience created for 72 students and five teachers from Prepa Mondragón at Mondragon University in Querétaro, Mexico, during their international study trip in Finland with Haaga-Helia.
During their visit, the students met people from different industries and heard about their careers and professional journeys. They were discovering Finland, encountering new perspectives and seeing different possibilities for their own futures.
Towards the end of their trip, it was time to stop taking in new information for a moment and reflect.
What does everything I have experienced mean for me?
Travel opens our minds
Being away from home takes us outside our normal routines and surroundings. We encounter different ways of living and thinking, see new possibilities and often become more open to questioning things we usually take for granted.
This makes international educational travel an especially powerful moment for personal reflection.
Study trips are often packed with company visits, lectures, cultural experiences and new encounters. All of these can be incredibly valuable, but without time to process them, it is easy to move quickly from one experience to the next.
This is why creative reflection can be such a meaningful way to end an international study trip. With the whole journey behind them, participants have a chance to look back, consider what has stayed with them and connect those experiences to their own lives.
For this group, that meant looking towards the future.
Before asking what I want to do, who am I?
Career choices are often approached from the outside in.
What should I study? Which professions offer good opportunities? What do others think I should do? What does success look like?
But there is another side to the decision.
What am I naturally drawn to? What gives me energy? What am I good at? What matters to me? What are my strengths, interests and passions? And who would I like to become?
Creative reflection gives young people space to explore these questions without requiring an immediate or correct answer.
Instead of starting with a profession, we started with the person.
Who am I now?
And from there:
Who would I like to be in the future?
The purpose wasn’t to decide anyone’s future during one afternoon. It was to give the students an opportunity to look inward and explore their own aspirations alongside all the possibilities and career stories they had encountered during their visit.
Thinking in colors
We usually approach important questions through words. We discuss, analyse, make lists and listen to advice.
Creativity gives us another way to think.
Working with colors, shapes, images and associations can help us explore ideas and feelings that we may not yet know how to put into words. Creative thinking allows us to make connections, imagine possibilities and move away from searching immediately for one correct answer.
The painting is therefore not the purpose of a Creative in Finland experience. Creativity is a tool for thinking and reflection.
With 78 participants, this became beautifully visible. Everyone explored the same questions, yet every piece of art was completely different.
Each participant left Finland with something entirely their own: a unique artwork connected to who they were at that moment, the future they had begun to imagine and the international experience during which they had explored those questions.
Reflection as part of international learning
The experience was facilitated entirely in English at the teachers’ request, giving the students an opportunity to listen, reflect and express themselves in English in a natural setting outside the classroom.
Creative in Finland experiences can also be facilitated in Spanish, Finnish and Swedish and are adapted to the age, objectives and purpose of each visiting group.
The reflection theme can change too. For another university or educational group, it might focus on intercultural learning, leadership, personal development or simply:
What has my experience of Finland meant to me?
International programmes give participants new experiences, knowledge and perspectives. Creative reflection gives them time to make sense of them.
That is what makes it such a natural way to end a journey.
Before the flights home and the return to everyday life, there is a moment to stop, look back and ask:
What am I taking with me from Finland?
And then to take that reflection home as a unique piece of art and a lasting memory of the journey.
Continue reading
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The role of trust in everyday life in Finland
About the author
Peppi Stünkel is the founder of Creative in Finland, creating facilitated creative reflection experiences for international groups visiting, studying and working in Finland. Her methodology uses guided reflection and creative expression to help participants process their experiences, discover personal meaning and turn what stayed with them into a lasting memory.
