Pur­su­ing Dreams from Brazil: Eduardo’s Path of Grat­i­tude

Meet Eduar­do Tom­i­na­ga, who’s been liv­ing in Oulu for almost 5 years now. He’s a PhD stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, con­duct­ing research on wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tions as part of the 6G Flag­ship team. He’s orig­i­nal­ly from Flo­ri­a­nop­o­lis, Brazil, an island off the coast of Brazil’s main­land.

Before com­plet­ing his bachelor’s degree in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing in Brazil, Eduar­do Tom­i­na­ga expressed his inter­est in wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tions to his pro­fes­sor and his desire to pur­sue fur­ther stud­ies abroad. For­tu­nate­ly, his pro­fes­sor in Brazil had con­nec­tions in Oulu, as one of his pre­vi­ous stu­dents is a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Eduar­do had always dreamt about study­ing abroad and acquir­ing his mas­ters. Fol­low­ing a few Skype inter­views with his professor’s for­mer stu­dent, he was accept­ed to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Thoughts of Oulu

Rem­i­nisc­ing about his ini­tial arrival in Oulu, Eduar­do recalls per­ceiv­ing Oulu as sig­nif­i­cant­ly small­er com­pared to his home­town and that it was excep­tion­al­ly cold even though it was plus 6 degrees. He men­tioned that even though Oulu is a small city, it holds ben­e­fits from both big and small­er cities, there are nice bars and the peo­ple in Oulu are wel­com­ing.

For Eduar­do, Oulu is a won­der­ful place to live, and the best place to research and work in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions field. The only con liv­ing so far up north is being far away from oth­er places and as he loves trav­el­ling, it’s a strug­gle hav­ing to trav­el to Helsin­ki first before trav­el­ling out­side of the coun­try.

Eduar­do thinks of Oulu as a safe, won­der­ful place and even though it’s far up north, there are a lot of inter­na­tion­al peo­ple. He’s met peo­ple from all over the world here and has made friends with peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al back­grounds for which he is grate­ful for. When it comes to the Finnish lan­guage, he has tak­en cours­es dur­ing his master’s stud­ies and would like to con­tin­ue learn­ing the lan­guage but says he’s able to nav­i­gate dai­ly life using Eng­lish alone.

A Day in the Life of Eduar­do

Eduar­do has a vari­ety of hob­bies, but his favorite hob­by is hit­ting the gym; he proud­ly calls him­self a “gym rat”. His day typ­i­cal­ly begins with an ear­ly morn­ing gym ses­sion last­ing about an hour.

Ini­tial­ly he would then attend lec­tures at the uni­ver­si­ty, but as his focus shift­ed to research, he now decides between work­ing at the office or from home. After com­plet­ing his tasks for the day, Eduar­do enjoys meet­ing up with friends for cof­fee or din­ner.

Reflect­ing on the dif­fer­ences between work­ing styles in Fin­land and Brazil, Eduar­do notes that Finland’s work cul­ture is more orga­nized and relaxed, with a strong empha­sis on main­tain­ing a health work-life bal­ance.

He appre­ci­ates the longer paid hol­i­days and finds the over­all work­ing envi­ron­ment to be less stress­ful. Grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ties Oulu has pro­vid­ed him, Eduar­do express­es his desire to con­tin­ue liv­ing and work­ing in Fin­land even after com­plet­ing his research.

Hav­ing Good Sup­port Around

Eduar­do has expe­ri­enced some chal­lenges dur­ing his time here, but thanks to the strong sup­port sys­tem around him, he’s man­aged to over­come them. While he acknowl­edges the dif­fi­cul­ty of learn­ing the Finnish lan­guage, he’s grate­ful for the many Eng­lish-speak­ing friends he’s made, as well as the sur­pris­ing dis­cov­er of a large Brazil­ian com­mu­ni­ty in Oulu.

These con­nec­tions have pro­vid­ed him with a sense of belong­ing, mak­ing it feel like a sec­ond fam­i­ly away from home.

“Oulu has made my dreams come true.”

One of Eduardo’s pri­ma­ry chal­lenges revolves around his men­tal health. Although he occa­sion­al­ly grap­ples with the thoughts of quit­ting, he tells him­self to per­se­vere and remem­bers that great out­comes come from hard­ships. He explained that it’s impor­tant to find hob­bies that bring you hap­pi­ness and keep your men­tal health strong, for exam­ple his love for work­ing out has helped him through­out the dif­fi­cult times.

Addi­tion­al­ly, he empha­sizes the impor­tance of sur­round­ing one­self with sup­port­ive indi­vid­u­als who can pro­vide com­fort and com­pan­ion­ship dur­ing chal­leng­ing moments.

Grate­ful for Fin­land, Eduar­do rec­og­nizes that Oulu has made his dreams come true, fos­ter­ing a deep sense of appre­ci­a­tion and com­mit­ment to giv­ing back to the coun­try.

Text: Adri­an Canales