VAMK’s own alumni survey was conducted for students who graduated two years ago.

In the field of higher education, co-creation is an important part of our operations. At Vaasa University of Applied Sciences, we want to encourage both our students and stakeholders to collaborate with our staff in developing our operations and teaching.

Our main mission is to educate skilled experts to meet the ever-changing needs of the working world. In this task, one of our most important partners is the business community, as well as our alumni who have already entered the workforce.

It’s important for us to hear about the experiences of the experts who have graduated from our university. We want to understand how the education they received at our university is benefiting them in the professional world and what kind of additional training needs our alumni have. Nationally, in all Finnish universities, a Career Monitoring Survey is conducted five years after graduation during the autumn.

In addition to this, at VAMK, we introduced an alumni survey for those who graduated two years ago. The goal of the survey is to learn about the career paths our alumni have taken a few years after obtaining their university of applied sciences degree. In the summer of 2023, 178 of our students who graduated in 2021 responded to our alumni survey out of 529 graduates (a response rate of 33.6%). The responses were evenly distributed among all three fields of education.

The majority (86%) of respondents work in a field related to their degree and have been continuously employed since graduation. One-third of the respondents have continued their studies, either at a university or by completing shorter courses to further develop their professional skills and advance in their careers. The majority (80%) of respondents were either very satisfied or satisfied with their completed degree. Additionally, we received valuable feedback, including suggestions for courses in our open university of applied sciences offering.