The Re-Edu­ca­tion of Bev Adero

Hi. My name is Adero. I am an afro-mil­len­ni­al design­er from Kenya. I cur­rent­ly serve as an ambas­sador for Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu.

”Turn and face the strange changes.”
David Bowie

When I moved to Oulu in 2021, I decid­ed to tran­si­tion careers from con­struc­tion to com­mu­ni­ca­tions.
Oulu is well known for being an excel­lent city for edu­ca­tion and is bustling with career devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties.

What fol­lows is a roadmap of the oppor­tu­ni­ties here in Oulu that have facil­i­tat­ed my career change.

• Kotou­tu­misk­oulu­tus
  Skills {Telecom­mut­ing | Active Lis­ten­ing | Pro­gram­ming}

I came to know about inte­gra­tion train­ing from a TE ser­vices coach a.k.a. “oma val­men­ta­ja”. I car­ried out my inte­gra­tion train­ing at Arff­man. My stud­ies took place online. They were based on the con­tact teach­ing mod­el. I trained along­side inter­na­tion­al tal­ent locat­ed all over Fin­land. Although learn­ing a new lan­guage is chal­leng­ing, my lessons were engag­ing, so I learnt quick­ly.

The course work includ­ed a lan­guage intern­ship a.k.a. “työhar­joit­telu” which I exe­cut­ed at an ele­men­tary school in Ii. My time was spent job-shad­ow­ing a resource teacher. Not only did I get to expe­ri­ence the world-renowned Finnish edu­ca­tion sys­tem first hand, but I also devel­oped my teach­ing skills. Addi­tion­al­ly, I sam­pled Finnish cui­sine via school lunch­es. A dis­tinct char­ac­ter­is­tic was the pro­vi­sion of veg­an and veg­e­tar­i­an alter­na­tives.

One of the perks of inte­gra­tion school is hav­ing access to infor­ma­tion and resources for pro­fes­sion­al growth. With sup­port from a teacher I became an actor in the Vil­la Vic­tor men­tor­ship pro­gramme. Togeth­er with my men­tor, I assessed my inter­ests and iden­ti­fied my trans­fer­able skills. At the same time, I was able to nar­row down my focus to soft­ware devel­op­ment.

Once inte­gra­tion train­ing was over, I found a career coach with whose guid­ance I began the Dig­inikkar­it työkokeilu at Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma. It was a part-time hybrid posi­tion. My Finnish lan­guage speak­ing skill lev­el was low there­fore I most­ly lis­tened. I received an intro­duc­tion to the basics of pro­gram­ming. I got exposed to the soft­ware devel­op­ment indus­try in Oulu and learnt about the local ICT job oppor­tu­ni­ties.

I par­tic­i­pat­ed in 3D print­ing and laser cut­ting at FabLab where I picked up the ”safe­ty first” lab­o­ra­to­ry cul­ture. I even exper­i­ment­ed with CAD (com­put­er aid­ed design) soft­ware. When my work-try­out a.k.a. “työkokeilu” con­clud­ed, I fol­lowed yet anoth­er lead from my career coach and con­tin­ued on to TUVA.

”Tip For those under­go­ing men­tor­ship: Open your­self to receiv­ing feed­back.”

• Tutk­in­tok­oulu­tuk­seen val­men­ta­va koulu­tus
  Skills {Exper­i­men­ta­tion | Strate­gic Think­ing | Sus­tain­abil­i­ty}

Oulu is the cycling cap­i­tal of Fin­land. It boasts approx­i­mate­ly 165 km of well-main­tained bicy­cle lanes. This infra­struc­ture enabled me to cycle to OSAO while I attend­ed TUVA. Here, I piv­ot­ed from learn­ing Finnish to learn­ing in Finnish. The sur­pris­ing option of self-direct­ed stud­ies made it pos­si­ble for me to tai­lor my lessons in accor­dance with my goals.

The ICT field is vast. After my työkokeilu, I was sold on soft­ware devel­op­ment but still need­ed to zero in on a spe­cial­i­sa­tion that suit­ed my exist­ing skills. In con­junc­tion with a teacher, I designed a study path direct­ed towards this tar­get.

Finnish cul­ture is cen­tred around close­ness to nature and I stud­ied action­able ways to con­serve it in my sus­tain­able devel­op­ment class. I kept my cre­ativ­i­ty alive by attend­ing art lessons. On one occa­sion, I sat in on a game devel­op­ment class. I was instant­ly hooked and realised that I want­ed to pur­sue game devel­op­ment fur­ther.

A core mem­o­ry for me is the trips we took. They gave me the chance to explore Oulu. Oulu is unique in that it offers urban cul­tur­al experiences along­side breath­tak­ing nature. I love vis­it­ing muse­ums for cre­ative inspi­ra­tion. For this rea­son, our trip to Pohjois-Poh­jan­maa muse­um was close to my heart. My favourite paint­ing was Oulun palo by Hem­mu Kesti. I was sur­prised to learn just how many times Oulu has burnt down! We also vis­it­ed Koitelinkos­ki where I devel­oped an appre­ci­a­tion for the out­doors.

Tip For those in TUVA: Chal­lenge your­self to try new things.

• Polkuopin­not
  Skills {For­ti­tude | Col­lab­o­ra­tion | Entre­pre­neur­ial Think­ing}

I dis­cov­ered OAMK’s polkuopin­not dur­ing my time at TUVA. I went on to spend an aca­d­e­m­ic year as a path­way stud­ies stu­dent. My field of study was Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy (Bach­e­lor of Engi­neer­ing). It was a hybrid set­up. I went to my onsite lec­tures by bus. It was a safe and com­fort­able com­mute, even in the win­ter. My first impres­sion of OAMK was of an egal­i­tar­i­an com­mu­ni­ty. Inter­ac­tions between stu­dents and staff were infor­mal in nature with lit­tle to no hier­ar­chy. The biggest chal­lenge I faced was my low Finnish lan­guage skill lev­el.

I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed study­ing the foun­da­tions of social media. What I thought would be a les­son in con­tent cre­ation turned out to be a les­son in media lit­er­a­cy. While work­ing on a group project where we built a Spe­den Spelit game con­sole, I acquired a new inter­est in elec­tron­ics. Although I have grown accus­tomed to work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly over the years, the study group mod­el of work made me more com­fort­able with col­lab­o­ra­tion.

In order to diver­si­fy my exper­tise while net­work­ing with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als, I joined the Oulu Entre­pre­neur­ship Soci­ety. I enrolled on the board as a design­er and had my first encounter with vol­un­teer­ing. Uni­move pro­vid­ed a means for me to indulge my hob­by of danc­ing. I explored dif­fer­ent gen­res of dance includ­ing reg­gae­ton and hip hop. Occa­sion­al­ly, I par­tied with my class­mates. The nightlife scene in Oulu is unex­pect­ed­ly live­ly.

While I ben­e­fit­ed great­ly from my time at OAMK, I did not have what it took to con­tin­ue my stud­ies.

Tip For those nav­i­gat­ing Path­way Stud­ies: Trust your­self.

Sal­la Iko­nen, Kuu­sisaaren puis­to (Ali­isa Oja­maa, 2024)

So, what next?

First, I am tak­ing a breather to recov­er. After that I need to upskill.

I wish to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing of Finnish lan­guage struc­tures.

Fur­ther­more, I aspire to devel­op aca­d­e­m­ic writ­ing, read­ing, speak­ing and inter­ac­tion skills.

Once I am con­fi­dent in these areas I intend to give col­lege anoth­er try.

“And if at first you don’t suc­ceed, then dust your­self off and try again.”
Aaliyah

Ajankulku by San­na Koivis­to, Maria Sil­f­vanin puis­to (Ali­isa Oja­maa, 2024)

Main pic­ture: Sal­la Iko­nen, Kuu­sisaaren puis­to (Pekka Rusa­nen, 2024)