French students learning in Finland – The first exchange period between REDU and Lycée Tristan Corbière

Sacha Grendon and Sacha Dayot spent three weeks on exchange at REDU, studying aircraft maintenance in Rovaniemi. The students came from the Brittany region, from the town of Morlaix, where they are in the third year of equivalent training. They are expected to graduate next spring.

New collaboration gets off to a promising start

REDU’s aircraft maintenance program has recently started a collaboration with the French school Lycée Tristan Corbière. This exchange period in Finland for the French students is the first concrete step in the new cooperation.

- The new cooperation has started off well. Early next year we will visit France in return, and we're planning when our own students will go there on exchange,” says aircraft maintenance teacher Harri Mikkonen.

The goal of the cooperation is also to create work-based learning opportunities for REDU students in local aircraft maintenance companies in France.

- Aircraft maintenance training in France is very similar to the program in Lapland. Here, the boys have done the same tasks as our own students. Additionally, we have given them some slightly more special assignments on a type of aircraft that isn’t available at their home school, Mikkonen adds.

Learning new skills at the core of the exchange

Sacha Grendon and Sacha Dayot describe the exchange experience as unique in many ways.

- We are in our third year of aircraft maintenance studies in Morlaix. At our school we have a lot of aircraft for practice, but here the machines are high quality, newer, and operational. They are much more realistic – at our school, the aircraft don’t even necessarily have engines.

In Rovaniemi, the students were able to try tasks they had not done before.

- We learned new things about mechanics. For example, repairing landing gear was something completely new to us.

First time in Finland — Experiencing cold Lapland

In their free time, the students wanted to experience as much of northern life as possible. They visited an ice hockey game, went skiing, and enjoyed watching the northern lights.

- Life here is different — quite peaceful and calm. And cold! We’ve never been in such freezing conditions before. At first it was impressive, but later it started to feel a bit uncomfortable. We are still lucky to have snow here!

The three-week period left the students with a lot to share when they return home.

- When we go back to our own school, we’ll tell our classmates about what we learned here. We gained new skills and experiences that will definitely be useful later.