Minno projects are coming – are you ready?

Next autumn, the Metropolia Minno® 2 courses will gradually start in a multidisciplinary format. The purpose of this message is to help you prepare – not only in terms of completing the course, but also in recognising your own competences and working life skills.

Why do Metropolia Minno® studies matter specifically for you?

Working life is changing rapidly. Professions, roles and job descriptions are evolving, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict any “safe choice” in advance. Researcher Hertta Vuorenmaa and the World Economic Forum highlight skills that cannot be automated: the ability to think critically, to keep learning new things, to operate in digital environments, to collaborate with different kinds of people, and to engage in constructive dialogue even in the midst of disagreements (Hallamaa 2026; World Economic Forum 2023).

These are exactly the skills you will practise in Metropolia Minno® studies – not in theory, but through real, multidisciplinary and often slightly messy challenges. In Metropolia Minno® 1 you reflect on these themes individually, and in Metropolia Minno® 2 you move into practice: as a team, you address a sustainability challenge that cannot be “solved alone at home” or just by reading lecture materials. In Metropolia Minno® 3 you deepen the competences you have already built while working on real working-life projects.

Many students may think at the beginning of Metropolia Minno® studies: “What’s the point of this?” and only realise later that teamwork, tolerating uncertainty, giving and receiving feedback, and the ability to move a shared project forward are actually some of the most important skills (tip: listen to the first episode of the “Johtajan jalanjäljissä” podcast (in Finnish), where Heidi Rontu, Vice President of Education, discusses exactly these themes with President, CEO Riitta Konkola).

Why is attendance mandatory in Metropolia Minno® 2?

Metropolia Minno® 2 is built around five workshops. They are not separate “lectures” but the backbone of the entire process. In the first session, you form multidisciplinary, multilingual and multicultural teams, choose a shared sustainability challenge and agree on how your team will work. Without this starting point, you cannot properly join the process – which is why an absence from the first workshop means that you will fail the course.

The later sessions are also essential: you deepen your understanding of target groups, collect data, ideate, build prototypes and test them. The day is not just a couple of hours of “lecturing”, but a full “Minno Monday”, where the guided session in the morning continues with team work in the afternoon. Being absent can easily mean missing as much as eight hours of work – not only for you, but for your whole team.

One absence from workshops 2–5 can be compensated with a compensatory assignment, provided that you inform the teacher in advance and submit the assignment as agreed. Multiple absences, however, break the process and mean that you can no longer complete the course successfully. This is fair both to you and to the other members of your team.

What does studying look like in practice?

For full-time students, Metropolia Minno® 2 is implemented as contact teaching. For blended-learning students there is an online implementation, but they can also commit to the full course in contact form if they wish. The course is organised on all Metropolia campuses. The exact location and classroom will be announced after the registration has closed and the multidisciplinary groups have been formed – this ensures that teams are genuinely mixed in terms of disciplines and languages. With the help of the teacher, you will form multidisciplinary teams from these groups during the first session.

What is expected from you?

Above all, you are expected to commit to the process: to show up, to inform in advance if you cannot attend, and to participate actively in your team’s work. Between workshops, you will complete team assignments – for example interviews, observations, ideation, prototyping and reflection on your own learning. Without this work, the next workshop will easily remain quite superficial.

The “backbone” of Metropolia Minno® 2 is the Moodle workspace, where you will find the learning outcomes, assessment criteria, workshop materials and activities such as the “Problem-solver skills” survey, self- and peer assessment, and the submission area for the learning diary. Each student’s progress in Moodle is followed, and for example you must submit your own learning diary at the end of the course, even though it is written based on the team’s shared work – this ensures that you can also personally articulate what you actually learned.

Assessment is not based only on the final outcome, but on how your team has used the design process, how you have contributed to collaboration, how you have completed the assignments between workshops, and how you understand the connection between your challenge, sustainable development and your own field.

What is the benefit for you?

Metropolia Minno® studies offer you a “practice field” where you can experiment, make mistakes and learn in a safe environment. You will get to experience what it feels like to:

•  work in a multidisciplinary, multilingual and multicultural team  
• tackle open, complex challenges that have no ready-made answers 
• move a challenge forward step by step, even when not everything is clear at once 
• present your idea and your team’s work to a wider audience, for example at MinnoFest  

You will need these skills regardless of the profession or role you end up in.

What can you do already now?

• make sure you can reserve the “Minno Mondays” in your calendar  
• think about how you personally want to develop: e.g. in teamwork, presenting, problem-solving or language skills  
• be prepared to travel to another campus if needed – the exact location will be announced later  
   → you can find the menus of all campus restaurants here  

And when the course starts: show up, participate, if something is unclear – ask, and inform in time if something prevents you from attending.  

More information, for example about the learning diary, the CC licence, alternative ways of completing Metropolia Minno® 3 and MinnoFest, can be found in the student instructions on the “Metropolia Minno®” page in the Student information bank.

References:  
World Economic Forum. 2023. *The Future of Jobs Report 2023*. Retrieved 3 June 2026 from https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/  

Hallamaa, T. 2026. Tekoäly on neljäs teollinen vallankumous – ”Nyt muuttuu kaikki työ”, sanoo työelämän tutkija. Viitattu 9.3.2026. https://yle.fi/a/74-20212825