“For me, the ques­tion is what made me stay in Fin­land” – in Fin­land Irantzu found her pur­pose

Fin­land offers every­thing that Irantzu Garces Munar­riz needs in life: mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships, a grat­i­fy­ing job at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, and time for liv­ing life – thanks to Oulu’s peace­ful soul.

When asked about what brought Irantzu Garces Munar­riz to Fin­land and espe­cial­ly to Oulu, she likes to think that it is not what brought her here but what made her stay.

Irantzu has expe­ri­ence from liv­ing in the US and of course from her home­land Spain, but in Fin­land some­thing just clicked.

Strength from Friend­ships

Diverse and sup­port­ive friend­ships were one of the rea­sons to make her stay. Irantzu thinks that in Fin­land her friend­ships are a bit more unique:

– When liv­ing in Spain, I was sur­round­ed by peo­ple more like me. But here I have friends from all over the world, she con­sid­ers.
Work­ing at uni­ver­si­ty tru­ly helps meet­ing peo­ple who have moved to Fin­land from abroad. Nev­er­the­less, Irantzu empha­sizes

Finnish cours­es where she has met oth­er peo­ple from for­eign coun­tries as well as get­ting to know Finns liv­ing in Oulu but who have an inter­na­tion­al mind­set since liv­ing abroad at some point.

“Here I have friends from all over the world.”

With her friends Irantzu enjoys spend­ing time in the kitchen, both cook­ing and eat­ing. Her cir­cle of friends con­sist­ing of peo­ple from all over the world has a huge impact on how she faces the food:

– I’ve always seen yogurt as a dessert but it’s not for all of us. And what I think is spicy is not the same for my Indi­an friends, so I always need to ask for a “lit­tle spicy”, Irantzu laughs.

Mov­ing to the city 1.5 months before the Covid-pan­dem­ic start­ed did not pre­vent her from get­ting to know the peo­ple and the city. She con­sid­ers her­self lucky in that regard.

Work­ing for Help­ing Oth­ers

Besides hav­ing mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships, one of the great­est rea­sons for Irantzu’s hap­pi­ness for liv­ing in Oulu is her job. The path has accom­mo­dat­ed many things, such as try­ing to do a PhD.

– I just real­ized the PhD was not for me, Irantzu reveals.

Get­ting a posi­tion in a research group in Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu led Irantzu to her cur­rent job, work­ing as an HR solu­tion design­er.

– I love my job and I think it is made for me, she rejoic­es.

Irantzu felt she was lost with her career before com­ing to Fin­land.

– Prac­tic­ing my pro­fes­sion here, psy­chol­o­gy, was and is very com­pli­cat­ed, which made me take anoth­er career direc­tion – with plea­sure. I have found a great pur­pose through my job.

She believes this career turn has played a very impor­tant role in think­ing about the direc­tion her life should take.

– When study­ing psy­chol­o­gy, deep down you want to help peo­ple and pro­vide them with tools to improve their well­be­ing. In this job this is pre­cise­ly what I do by build­ing new and bet­ter ser­vices and activ­i­ties to sup­port new­com­ers and make the uni­ver­si­ty a bet­ter work­place for inter­na­tion­als, Irantzu con­sid­ers.

City With a Peace­ful Soul

When you have got used to busy and crowd­ed places and hat­ing it, Fin­land may seem like a heav­en on earth. The peace­ful­ness of Oulu was some­thing that attract­ed Irantzu. Liv­ing in Oulu is com­fort­able: the traf­fic is in con­trol, you can bike every­where and dis­tances between places are suit­able.

– The envi­ron­ment has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on both men­tal and phys­i­cal health, and tran­quil­i­ty is close­ly linked to a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life. I have expe­ri­enced this first­hand. In a slow-paced city like Oulu, I’m able to focus and main­tain my well-being, Irantzu rea­sons.

Besides enjoy­ing the time to real­ly live life, Irantzu spends her free time doing dif­fer­ent sports. Going to the gym and doing yoga is a way to relax for her:

– On the phys­i­cal side, it helps me stay fit and healthy and on the men­tal side, it helps with keep­ing my mood and focus in a good place. Doing sports and being active has espe­cial­ly helped me cope with the win­ter, she dis­clos­es.

The slow rip­ple of life may some­times raise a ques­tion “is there some­thing wrong in my life since noth­ing is hap­pen­ing?”, but in real­i­ty, the peace one can expe­ri­ence in Oulu has more to offer than any­place else in the entire world.

Text: Tes­sa Nikka