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I am Osama Hamoud, a 3rd year student at the BScBA Program. I was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. I wouldn’t say I have an international background per se, however I used to travel with my family often. I did the American Diploma in Genius International School in Giza. You could see the great pyramids of Giza from our school campus and its about 4 minutes car ride to this wonderful monument. If you ever visit Egypt you will either find me on the back of a horse or haggling prices in markets and bazaars.

How and why did you end up choosing our BScBA program?

If I am being honest, once I realized that I wanted to study business I used the academic ranking of world universities and applied for the top 30 business schools, lucky Aalto was the 24th. It is hard to imagine two places more different than Egypt and Finland and that’s what excited me to accept the offer from Aalto. 

What has your study experience been like so far?

Studying in Mikkeli has been quite amazing. We have a different course and a different professor every 3 weeks, and I am quite happy that I have stayed in touch with most of the professors and can even call some of them my friends. By far the best thing about Mikkeli is our student community. Despite being thousands of kilometres away from Cairo, Mikkeli still feels like home thanks to our amazing community.

Would you recommend our program to other students?

I definitely recommend the program to everyone, although sometimes it might get a bit cold for my fellow Egyptians.

How have your studies in Aalto University and living in Mikkeli shaped you as a person?

My time in Mikkeli has showed me what I am capable of. For instance, I never thought I could stay away from home for too long - now it’s been almost a year since I last visited. I learned a lot about other cultures and nationalities and being an exchange tutor has helped a lot with that. I now have tutor children scattered all over the globe. It’s good to know that wherever I go, I’ll have a place to crash.