Embrac­ing Oulu: A Tex­an’s Tale of Growth, Chal­lenges, and Suc­cess

Adri­an Canales is orig­i­nal­ly from Texas, USA. He has been liv­ing and call­ing Oulu his home for eleven years. Adrian’s plan com­ing to Fin­land was to start a new chap­ter of his life, con­tin­ue his edu­ca­tion and start a career. Cur­rent­ly he is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern at Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu.

My name is Adri­an, I’m 38 years old and orig­i­nal­ly from Texas, USA. I’ve been liv­ing and call­ing Oulu my home for eleven years. I first made my jour­ney to Fin­land in 2013, with my then wife, who is half Amer­i­can half Finnish. Before com­ing to Fin­land, I had received a bach­e­lor’s degree in mar­ket­ing and was work­ing at a call cen­ter sell­ing insur­ance in sev­en­teen dif­fer­ent states. At that time my then wife had want­ed to move back home to Fin­land, so that’s what we did.

My plan com­ing to Fin­land was to start a new chap­ter of my life, con­tin­ue my edu­ca­tion and start a career. Before mov­ing, I had applied for a mas­ter’s pro­gram in Mar­ket­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. I didn’t get accept­ed into the pro­gram, but that didn’t stop me from adapt­ing into the Finnish cul­ture. I start­ed going to free Finnish cours­es at Vil­la Vik­tor and went to the TE office, which pro­vides ser­vices for unem­ployed job­seek­ers, to see what kind of job oppor­tu­ni­ties were there for me.

Through the TE office, I was able to join an immi­gra­tion course that would help me inte­grate into Finnish cul­ture as well as learn the lan­guage. Through the course I was able to accli­mate to the new envi­ron­ment I was in, learn about Finnish his­to­ry and gain knowl­edge of the Finnish lan­guage to help me gain lan­guage skills to enter the job mar­ket. Dur­ing that course, in 2014, I applied to Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences (OAMK) and was accept­ed to study Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness, and I was able to con­tin­ue my edu­ca­tion.

First Impres­sions

Oulu gave me a home­town feel­ing, com­ing from a small Texas town, and have lived in major cities like Hous­ton and Austin, Texas, Oulu was a per­fect mid­dle ground. I arrived in Oulu in June, so I was able to expe­ri­ence the beau­ty of the Finnish sum­mer, eat­ing Finnish straw­ber­ries, which are the best straw­ber­ries in the whole world, enjoy­ing pic­nics and rid­ing bikes all around the city.

“Finnish straw­ber­ries are the best straw­ber­ries in the whole world.“

It sur­prised me how many peo­ple walk and ride bikes here, because back home you need­ed a car to go any­where or do any­thing.

The peo­ple in Oulu were wel­com­ing and laid back, and I real­ly like how peo­ple val­ue per­son­al space. I like being to myself, but I’m also open and enjoy hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions when some­one speaks to me, I feel like Oulu and Fin­land fit my per­son­al­i­ty well.

Life in Oulu

Life in Oulu has been great to me, luck­i­ly, I’ve been able to cre­ate a life here. Of course there have been some strug­gles, but over­all, I couldn’t ask for a bet­ter place to call my home. I have a 5‑year-old son, who brings me so much joy and light to my life.

I’ve been able to attain my sec­ond bachelor’s degree from Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences in Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness, have worked in two inter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, and cur­rent­ly intern­ing as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern at Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu, uti­liz­ing my Eng­lish lan­guage and mar­ket­ing skills. I’ve made friends with both local and inter­na­tion­al back­grounds and have become a DJ in the music scene here.

Work­ing in Oulu

I have had the plea­sure of work­ing in two inter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies as a sales devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist and account man­ag­er. In 2017, I land­ed my first sales posi­tion dur­ing my stud­ies at OAMK, I noticed and applied to a job post­ing from the school’s intranet that was hir­ing Eng­lish sales pro­fes­sion­als and end­ed up work­ing at the com­pa­ny for a cou­ple of years. In 2019, I was look­ing for a change,

I reached out to my net­work on LinkedIn, and it just so hap­pened the man­ag­er and per­son who trained me at my first job was com­ing back to Oulu and had an oppor­tu­ni­ty for me at anoth­er com­pa­ny doing the same sales tasks that I was already doing, I end­ed up work­ing at that job for four years. Some unfore­seen events hap­pened, and I need­ed to start look­ing for anoth­er job. It was a chal­leng­ing time for me, but I kept my hopes high and eyes open.

In the begin­ning of 2024, that’s when I found and went to a job fair “Työn­taita­jik­si” at the Oulu the­atre and found Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu. That morn­ing, they had just announced a mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern­ship. I sub­mit­ted my appli­ca­tion and imme­di­ate­ly called the mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er to intro­duce myself. Now I proud­ly hold the posi­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern at the orga­ni­za­tion.

The work cul­ture in Fin­land was refresh­ing com­pared to what I expe­ri­enced in Texas. The two com­pa­nies that I worked with here had flex­i­ble work­ing hours and work­ing from home was option­al, espe­cial­ly after the pan­dem­ic. The free­dom of doing my work was dif­fer­ent, I was used to a man­ag­er always over my shoul­der and con­tin­u­ous­ly micro­manag­ing every­thing I did, but in Fin­land employ­ees have more trust from their supe­ri­ors, and I espe­cial­ly can’t com­plain about a mon­th’s hol­i­day guar­an­teed each year.

Chal­lenges and tips

Even though I have been able to cre­ate a nice life here, there have been some chal­lenges that I had to over­come. One of them being the lan­guage, Finnish is one of the hard­est lan­guages to learn in my opin­ion, after eleven years, I do under­stand almost every­thing, but speak­ing is still a chal­lenge.

I’ve been lucky to have found jobs that cater to my Eng­lish skills, also that Oulu is quite an inter­na­tion­al city, because major­i­ty of the peo­ple speak Eng­lish very well. I’m hop­ing the intern­ship I am in right now at Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu helps improve my Finnish skills.

Anoth­er chal­lenge I have expe­ri­enced here is the dark and cold win­ters, but I’ve come to under­stand that all of us in Fin­land are strug­gling dur­ing those times and there is always sauna to help escape the cold. I love the sauna cul­ture in Fin­land, it helps me in so many ways.

It helps improve my immune sys­tem, it’s a time for me to get away from the stress in my life and of course it keeps me warm. Dur­ing the win­ter, I believe it’s impor­tant to have good peo­ple around you and have hob­bies that keep your men­tal health as good as it can be.

I think the biggest chal­lenge for me was and is find­ing work, even though I have had suc­cess find­ing work here, it isn’t easy, and it requires a lot of effort. If I were to give some advice to some­one look­ing for work in Oulu and Fin­land in gen­er­al, it would be to net­work as much as pos­si­ble, whether that be on LinkedIn, or with peo­ple you know that have been suc­cess­ful find­ing work here. Find all the avail­able resources to help guide you on the right path, there are plen­ty avail­able, for exam­ple Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu offers a diverse range of ser­vices to help immi­grants.

Keep your eyes open for job fairs and go to them, you nev­er know what you might find. You will need to put your­self out there, it will be uncom­fort­able, but it’s worth it in the end.

When you apply for a posi­tion, call the hir­ing man­ag­er to intro­duce your­self, make your­self mem­o­rable, it increas­es your chance to get that call for an inter­view.

Over­all, I have loved Oulu since the day I arrived. Who knows what the future holds for me, but for now, I don’t see myself leav­ing any­time soon and hope to con­tin­ue cre­at­ing a nice life here with the skills and knowl­edge I have gained while liv­ing here.