Frequently Asked Questions

Team Academy is a special unit for Entrepreneurship and Leadership in Jyvaskyla University of Applied Sciences. The learning methods are really different when compared to traditional Finnish education system. That is why our ways of working may rise many questions in your mind. Here is a couple of frequently asked questions and answers  to those.

What is the degree you get from Team Academy ?
You graduate from Team Academy with Bachelor of Business  
Administration. It is lower level higher education degree with 210 credits.

How long do the studies at Team Academy take?
Normally you graduate in 3,5 years time although studies can be completed faster if you want to. However, the trip around the world is usually after those 3,5 years with your team company.

What kind of courses there are at Team Academy ?
You can find the official course selection from here. In practice you "take courses" by 1) doing projects with clients 2) training with your team company and 3) reading books. All courses are combinations of  these three elements.

You seem to use the word coach instead of teacher. What difference does it make?
Coach is not a lecturer (even though in case needed it is possible).  
Their job is make teamsters' learning faster and easier. This is done  
e.g. by spurring, giving feedback, leading dialogue and by evaluating projects and written papers. In most cases coaches coach their own teams through its entire journey (3,5 years) at Team Academy .

You use a lot of unique and weird words. What do they mean?
Team Academy 's culture creates new words all the time. Those may really sound weird and quite funny to outsider. You'll find our terminology here.

Do you have opportunities for specializing in Team Academy ? What are they?
We don't have official opportunities for specialization. Your specialization happens according to your own interest, and you choose studies and projects which are suitable for you. Main thing is of course that you develop the skills, the knowledge and the abilities you need to run the enterprise. Usually your imagination is the only and biggest limit for your learning. 

You concentrate a lot in learning by doing but how about your theory studies? 
We really concentrate a lot in learning by doing. But in any case we haven't forgotten theory. In fact, our theory studies are wide and demanding. They are done by reading a good number of books (from 60 – 80 books) during our studies (look examples of literature from here) and applying the theory learned into practise. Our experiences show that theories are most useful when you can apply it straight into practise in projects.

In Team Academy we learn to apply theory into practise, rather than learning theories just for the sake of it. Our theory studies are formed of ‘reading points' which each student has to get 120. You get those points by reading books. From one book you get 1 to 3 reading points depending on how challenging it is so in practise you read during your studies about 60-80 business books. You choose books you want to read using “best books for an entrepreneur and a coach guidebook”. It includes about 1000 different books where to choose from. Books are divided into 7 domains.