How Oulu sup­ports my career and sur­rounds me with nature

Hi! My name is Arjane, I’m from the Nether­lands, and I moved to Fin­land in 2018. After liv­ing in Jyväskylä for a cou­ple of years, I came to Oulu just over a year ago.

I chose Oulu because it has excel­lent resources for immi­grants: Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma, Oulu Skills Cen­tre, Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu, Vil­la Vic­tor, and more.

It also has good net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and is a very tech-ori­ent­ed city. The lat­ter is espe­cial­ly impor­tant to me since I switched my career from biol­o­gy to IT, and I found an intern­ship here that has real­ly helped me make that switch. It’ll run until the end of this year and after that I hope to find a posi­tion in web devel­op­ment, mar­ket­ing, or some­thing sim­i­lar, as long as I can learn a lot every day. A place where I can prac­tice my Finnish would be great since I’m not entire­ly flu­ent yet.

Know­ing Finnish is essen­tial in most jobs, though in IT it’s usu­al­ly eas­i­er to find a place where you don’t need to be flu­ent and can use Eng­lish as a work­ing lan­guage.

How Oulu fuels my career

Mov­ing to Oulu has had a sig­nif­i­cant and pos­i­tive impact on my life. Thanks to my intern­ship at the ICTOulu team of Business­Oulu I have a con­sid­er­able net­work now, which real­ly helps me in my career. I also receive much sup­port from my ICTOulu col­leagues and from the oth­er places I men­tioned.

The way I found my intern­ship posi­tion was some­what of a coin­ci­dence. My net­work in Oulu con­sist­ed of two peo­ple, both from Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma, whom I met through a work­shop on work­ing life. I had added them on LinkedIn, and one of them tagged me in ICTOulu’s intern­ship vacan­cy. I decid­ed to apply since it would allow me to build a great Oulu-based IT net­work, and I man­aged to get the posi­tion.

My net­work has more or less explod­ed since then, and ever since the begin­ning I feel very wel­comed and val­ued. Even the high­est boss asks me now and then how I’m doing. Hier­ar­chy is bare­ly present, and you’re on a first-name basis with every­one. It would be great if I could stay here or find anoth­er posi­tion in Business­Oulu. Both Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma and BusinessOulu/ICTOulu have giv­en me much to be tru­ly grate­ful for.

My favourite parts of Oulu

Oulu as a city is an amaz­ing place to live, and I espe­cial­ly enjoy that nature is every­where. It’s also great to vis­it the city cen­tre, which is not too big but has every­thing you need. I also enjoy the his­tor­i­cal build­ings there, many of which are right at the shore in the cen­tre which makes it a great spot to hang out at in sum­mer. Speak­ing of which, some­thing I find still quite sur­pris­ing here is the frozen sea, as that’s some­thing I’d nev­er seen before.

Being from the Nether­lands, I’m quite famil­iar with the coast, but it’s not quite cold enough there to freeze the sea. I like going to the Nal­likari beach both in sum­mer and win­ter, but my favourite beach is close to the light­house on Hailu­o­to Island. Clos­er to home, my favourite spot is the for­est around the cor­ner, since it’s so qui­et and inti­mate. It’s the best place to relax, think and just be.

“Learn how to dress warm­ly and fall in love with the snow, the silence, and nature.”

I also like the lit­tle for­est tracks that run every­where, and I love walk­ing on them and explor­ing the for­est like that. It’s so nice to be able to enjoy nature right at my doorstep and explore the bits of for­est that are spread all through­out the city. Though of all the things Oulu’s nature has to offer, my favourite thing of all is when the trees are frozen white, and the morn­ing- or evening sun sets them alight in a bright blue sky.

How to move to Oulu

If you con­sid­er mov­ing to Oulu, it’s good to pre­pare a lit­tle. Learn how to dress warm­ly (hint: dress in many lay­ers!) and fall in love with the snow, the silence, and nature.

Find out about places where you can devel­op your social life, for exam­ple through a hob­by or join­ing a sports club, net­work as much as you can even if it’s hard, and above all enjoy the heck out of it!