Prativa Bhusal IBL15  3 months placement as CEO of PK Clothing in Helsinki Feb – April 2018

A small number of students choose to work for their own company as their work placement and we in Metropolia do encourage this. Our criteria state that the company must already be established before the work placement starts however. I had a change to interview Prativa  Khanal  who is a IBL student from Nepal and graduating soon from Metropolia and shares her insight about doing your placement in your own company.

Could you tell a bit who you are, what is your company about and why did you choose to do the placement in your own company ?

I am Prativa Khanal, a final year BBA student at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. At the moment, I am working on my final thesis which deals with the motivation of Finnish Apparel brands’ CSR activities. I want to grow not just as an entrepreneur, but as an ethical entrepreneur- Prativa Khanal

I have always been passionate about innovation and responsible entrepreneurship and as a result, in 2017, I decided to register a clothing company. Prativa Clothing (PK Clothing) is a responsible business initiative with a long-term vision to produce hand-made, customized, high-fashion clothing products.

Since the birth of my company, I have made a promise to myself that my clothing products will be entirely ethical. I am not going to use animal products at all, and focus on sustainability and CSR. Since then, I have been practicing to create zero waste pattern for clothing and I have been using the waste fabrics to make products like cushions and pillows.

Like any other student of Metropolia, I took the regular route and apply for an internship in companies in Helsinki, however, for reasons I don’t exactly know, my application was turned down.

However, I always had the idea of establishing my own business somewhere on my mind, even though, for a long time I didn’t feel like I was ready enough, or even good enough to start my own clothing business. So, the idea of registering my own company was quickly borne out of the frustration of not getting internship place of my choice.

The self-employment placement opportunity offered by Metropolia was just suitable in my case and fitted perfectly into this puzzle. On the other hand, I think that was a perfect time and opportunity for me to work on my dream project and nurture something that I had established with passion.

I consider myself lucky that I did my work placement at my own company. And, most importantly, this opportunity provided me with the experiences, lessons, and tools I need to get engaged in my professional life in the future. I believe that this is a very beneficial path for certain students who want to invest time in their own concepts. However, this experience was challenging, too. For instance, I was the only workforce, and the amount of work was significant and I was supposed to do as many things as possible even though some tasks seemed to be out of my capacity or expertise.

But I am very satisfied with the outcomes and I would obviously recommend students to follow this path if they want to start something on their own.

Finally, I would also like to recommend students that if they want to do their placement as self-employed, 6 months would be an ideal time period instead of 3 months. I would also like to mention that I am always there to help, if somebody decides to follow this path for their placement and need some guidance. I can be reached by email at prativa.khanal (at) gmail.com.