Embrac­ing Change: Far­i­ha’s Jour­ney from Dha­ka to Oulu

Meet Far­i­ha, a master’s stu­dent in Edu­ca­tion and Glob­al­i­sa­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. From the bustling streets of Dha­ka, Bangladesh, to the serene charm of Oulu, Fin­land, her jour­ney has been noth­ing short of a trans­for­ma­tive one. Dis­cov­er how the warmth of Oulu’s peo­ple, the chal­lenges of learn­ing a new lan­guage, and the beau­ty of Finnish nature have shaped her expe­ri­ence.

Who

“Be brave. Take risks. Noth­ing can sub­sti­tute expe­ri­ence.” These words by Paulo Coel­ho have echoed in my mind ever since I embarked on a life-chang­ing jour­ney from Dha­ka, Bangladesh to Oulu, Fin­land. My name is Far­i­ha Khan, doing my sec­ond master’s, in Edu­ca­tion and Glob­al­i­sa­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, and I am a firm believ­er in the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of experiences.

It’s been 10 months since I trad­ed the famil­iar hus­tle and bus­tle of Dha­ka for the serene charm of Oulu. With a back­ground in Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture (bachelor’s and master’s) and 6 years spent as a uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er in Bangladesh, I yearned for a deep­er under­stand­ing of edu­ca­tion­al poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly I want­ed to learn about the con­cept of inclu­sion in edu­ca­tion.

Fin­land, cel­e­brat­ed for its unpar­al­leled edu­ca­tion sys­tem and its sta­tus as the hap­pi­est coun­try on Earth, called out to me with the promise of aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence. I desired to engage myself in its edu­ca­tion­al land­scape first­hand, eager to wit­ness the prin­ci­ples of inclu­siv­i­ty in action and under­stand the secrets behind Fin­land’s edu­ca­tion­al suc­cess.

Why Oulu

Choos­ing Oulu as my new home was a delib­er­ate deci­sion, main­ly because I want­ed to study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. With fam­i­ly mem­bers already set­tled in Fin­land, espe­cial­ly my broth­er who was also study­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu that time, I had heard a lot about the uni­ver­si­ty and had high expec­ta­tions. I must say my expec­ta­tions were quite met as I believe I have tru­ly learned a lot from my uni­ver­si­ty, espe­cial­ly from the fac­ul­ty of edu­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, the day I arrived in Oulu by train from Helsin­ki, I was a bit dis­ap­point­ed with the mod­est size of the rail­way sta­tion. Nev­er­the­less, I soon dis­cov­ered that the city’s true beau­ty lies not in its grandeur, but in the warmth of its peo­ple and the abun­dance of nature sur­round­ing it.

Perks of Oulu

Con­trary to the stereo­type of reserved Finns, I found the peo­ple of Oulu to be remark­ably friend­ly and help­ful. Despite the cold weath­er, I found the hearts of the peo­ple remark­ably warm. Whether I was lost on a street or in need of direc­tions, their will­ing­ness to assist and gen­uine enthu­si­asm made me feel at home.

Despite my strug­gles with the lan­guage bar­ri­er and the chal­lenges of inte­grat­ing into a new cul­ture, I found solace in the gen­uine kind­ness of those around me in Oulu, whether they were from my uni­ver­si­ty or oth­er places I vis­it­ed. One of the most poignant exam­ples of this was my inter­ac­tions with my daugh­ter’s preschool teach­ers. Every time I vis­it­ed the preschool, they would greet me with gen­uine warmth, their smiles glow­ing a sense of care and con­cern. There was one elder­ly teacher who would give me a moth­er­ly hug on each time I vis­it­ed, pro­vid­ing com­fort and reas­sur­ance dur­ing my uncer­tain­ties regard­ing an ini­tial fam­i­ly issue.

Although we moved to Oulu as a fam­i­ly, my hus­band had to return home due to an emer­gency. Dur­ing those dif­fi­cult months when my hus­band had to return to Dha­ka for urgent rea­sons, leav­ing me and my daugh­ter to nav­i­gate the unfa­mil­iar nature of Finnish win­ters alone, their sup­port became invalu­able. They would go an extra mile to speak in Eng­lish just to inquire about my men­tal well-being, offer­ing words of encour­age­ment and empa­thy that eased my bur­den.

But above every­thing else, it was a moment of sheer beau­ty that I gen­uine­ly want to remem­ber as my best mem­o­ry from Oulu, a per­son­al moment of mag­ic which tru­ly cap­tured the essence of my ‘Oulu exis­tence’.

One cold win­ter morn­ing in late Decem­ber, as I gazed out of my eighth-floor win­dow after hav­ing a sleep­less night, I saw a breath­tak­ing sight: snow-cov­ered pine trees bathed in the soft glow of the morn­ing sun, stretch­ing as far as my mor­tal eyes could see. For a moment, it seemed as though time itself had frozen in the milk-white land­scape. In that moment of puri­ty, all my wor­ries and fears melt­ed away, replaced by a pro­found sense of peace and grat­i­tude for the trea­sures of nature.

For me, one of the most strik­ing aspects of Oulu is its close affin­i­ty with nature. Com­ing from the con­crete-made metrop­o­lis of Dha­ka, the abun­dance of green­ery and tran­quil forests around every cor­ner feels like a rev­e­la­tion. Hupisaaret Park, in par­tic­u­lar, has become my favourite – a place where the sea­sons play mag­ic, offer­ing solace amidst the chaos of life. It’s quite near to the place where I live.

The first time I vis­it­ed the park was dur­ing win­ter, and it seemed almost like an enchant­ed Nar­nia, a true win­ter won­der­land. To my sur­prise, I dis­cov­ered a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent look of the place recent­ly, now that it’s final­ly sum­mer in Oulu.

“The park seemed almost like an enchant­ed Nar­nia, a true win­ter won­der­land.”

In sum­mer it’s a per­fect place for fam­i­lies with kids. You can see chil­dren play­ing, while lying or sit­ting on the grass beside the cas­cad­ing lit­tle streams and lis­ten to the music of flow­ing water along­side birds’ chirp­ing. Oulu is sur­round­ed by plen­ty of sim­i­lar parks and water bod­ies which can offer a quick escape from the chal­lenges of every­day life.

Chal­lenges that I faced In Oulu

When I arrived in Oulu dur­ing autumn, many peo­ple I knew would make joke in a warn­ing man­ner with the famous phrase, ‘win­ter is com­ing!’ Ini­tial­ly, I thought the harsh win­ter tem­per­a­tures, drop­ping to neg­a­tive 30 some­thing degrees, would be the biggest chal­lenge to me as I come from the warmer part of the world. How­ev­er, I was soon to be proven wrong!

From the moment I set foot in Oulu, I eager­ly began my quest for part-time employ­ment. To my sur­prise, this turned out to be the great­est chal­lenge I had ever faced. Despite my efforts, I did not receive a sin­gle inter­view call – a stark con­trast to my past experiences.

Back in Bangladesh, I prid­ed myself on my track record of nev­er being reject­ed by an employ­er and had main­tained con­tin­u­ous employ­ment since my under­grad­u­ate days. The real­iza­tion that I had applied to near­ly a hun­dred places with­out a sin­gle response was a bit­ter pill to swal­low. The cul­prit? Most prob­a­bly the lan­guage bar­ri­er.

In Oulu, as I soon dis­cov­ered, flu­en­cy in Finnish is often a pre­req­ui­site for employ­ment. Despite my impres­sive resume and cre­den­tials, my inabil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate in the local lan­guage proved to be a sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle. How­ev­er, I didn’t lose hope. I kept on try­ing.

How I End­ed up at IH Oulu

As a manda­to­ry com­po­nent of my uni­ver­si­ty stud­ies, I need­ed to secure an intern­ship posi­tion. How­ev­er, the first two months passed in fruit­less search. It was at an intern­ship fair orga­nized by the Fac­ul­ty of Edu­ca­tion, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, that I stum­bled upon a ray of hope – the Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu. With renewed opti­mism, I pitched myself to their selec­tion com­mit­tee and prompt­ly sub­mit­ted my appli­ca­tion.

The call for an inter­view came swift­ly, mark­ing a piv­otal moment in my jour­ney. While the prospect of employ­ment was induc­ing, the mere oppor­tu­ni­ty to be inter­viewed filled me with a sense of accom­plish­ment. And thus, my tenure as an intern at the Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu began – a role for which I am immense­ly grate­ful.

My Two Cents for the New­com­ers

My expe­ri­ence taught me the impor­tance of lan­guage pro­fi­cien­cy in nav­i­gat­ing the Finnish job mar­ket. In a coun­try where Finnish is the pre­dom­i­nant lan­guage of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, flu­en­cy opens doors to oppor­tu­ni­ties and fos­ters mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions. While Eng­lish pro­fi­cien­cy is wide­spread in Oulu, mas­ter­ing Finnish remains invalu­able for those seek­ing long-term employ­ment and inte­gra­tion into Finnish soci­ety.

In con­clu­sion, my jour­ney in Oulu has been a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of embrac­ing the unknown and step­ping out­side of my com­fort zone. Through the highs and lows, I have emerged stronger and more resilient, enriched by the experiences that have shaped my path. And as I con­tin­ue my jour­ney for­ward in this city, I wish I get accus­tomed with the lan­guage quick­ly and start speak­ing Finnish to con­tin­ue liv­ing under the north­ern lights (which I haven’t got an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see yet!).