Where do young people motivated to study go and what do they think?
Bachelor of Science in Business and Economics students Maja Ahlgren and Elsa Edström have just finished their five-week internship at the management consulting company Pro&Pro. They are both in year III and are studying marketing and business development.
The internship has taken place within the framework of the business cooperation in the CER network. During their internship, Maja Ahlgren and Elsa Edström have had the opportunity to conduct a social analysis and then analyzed where the study-motivated young people in the Sundsvall region go after completing their upper secondary school diploma and also examined how they think about their future choices. Tommy Ytterström, who is the CEO of Pro&Pro, has been the students' supervisor. He is very pleased with the students' efforts and says that the results in themselves are not surprising, but show that a large proportion of the surveyed target group moves away. Thanks to the work of Maja Ahlgren and Elsa Edström, there is now a deeper analysis of why this happens."Access to study-motivated and competent individuals is crucial for regional growth and development," says Tommy Ytterström, and continues:
" These driven individuals often take central roles in business development and contribute to creating conditions for employment and economic activity for others in the region. In many smaller and medium-sized regions, it is challenging to retain young high-performing graduates.
Tommy Ytterström says that Pro&Pro has helped companies and organizations with growth assignments for many years. He can attest that a challenge for growth is finding the right skills.
"In order to be able to compete with companies from the big cities, it is important to capture those who are motivated and ambitious. Therefore, this question is highly interesting.
He sees receiving interns as a natural part of this work.
"We want to give students knowledge and abilities to solve complex challenges, a network for the future and practice talking in real situations. We want to help equip them with important tools to enable them to succeed after their studies and achieve their dreams.
Tommy Ytterström concludes by saying that Maja Ahlgren and Elsa Edström have also developed recommendations for Mid Sweden University, the business community and Sundsvall municipality to help increase the attraction for this target group.