Find­ing Home in Oulu: My Jour­ney from Colom­bia to the Far North

Hi! I’m Jes­si­ca Segu­ra Polo, and I come from Colom­bia. I’m mar­ried to a doc­tor­al researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, which is what ini­tial­ly brought me to this city. Before Oulu, we were liv­ing in Halm­stad, Swe­den, for two years. Mov­ing to Fin­land was a big change, but I was excit­ed to start a new chap­ter of our lives togeth­er in Oulu.

I’ve been here for three years now, and it’s incred­i­ble how quick­ly this city has become home. When we first arrived, it was sum­mer, and I was amazed at how beau­ti­ful every­thing was—green, full of flow­ers, and so alive.

Oulu real­ly sur­prised me. Back in 2019, when I first thought about mov­ing to the Nordic coun­tries, I imag­ined it would be cold and win­tery all the time. But Oulu, even though it’s far up north, has a love­ly sum­mer cli­mate, and it’s one of the things I love most about liv­ing here.

From a Big City to a Small Town: Find­ing Peace

Com­ing from a big city in Colom­bia, I was used to a fast-paced, busy lifestyle, so mov­ing to a small­er, qui­eter city like Oulu was a big shift. But I’ve grown to appre­ci­ate the calm­ness here.

Oulu has this peace­ful ener­gy, and the close­ness to nature is some­thing I cher­ish. It’s so dif­fer­ent from what I was used to – you can walk through the for­est at any time, feel com­plete­ly safe, and even pick berries right in your back­yard. It’s a spe­cial kind of tran­quil­i­ty that I didn’t real­ize I need­ed.

Now, a lit­tle bit about my back­ground. I have a Master’s in Busi­ness Man­age­ment from Colom­bia and over five years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in mar­ket­ing and events for com­pa­nies like Zara and Mont­blanc. I also pur­sued a Master’s in Tourism Man­age­ment in Spain before mov­ing to Swe­den.

Since com­ing to Oulu, I’ve been focused on adapt­ing to Finnish life. I spent two and a half years study­ing Finnish as part of my inte­gra­tion course, which helped me a lot in under­stand­ing the lan­guage and cul­ture.

Cur­rent­ly, I’m doing an intern­ship at Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu, which has been a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow pro­fes­sion­al­ly and learn more about the Finnish work­ing envi­ron­ment.

Unfor­get­table Moment: See­ing the North­ern Lights

What stands out the most to me about Oulu is the kind­ness of the peo­ple here. Last year, I had some health issues, and the health­care ser­vices were fast and com­pas­sion­ate. The empa­thy I felt from the med­ical staff was real­ly touch­ing, and it made me feel a lit­tle clos­er to home.

I’ve also been lucky to build a net­work of good peo­ple around me, whether through my lan­guage cours­es or my intern­ship, and that has helped me set­tle into life here.

One of my most unfor­get­table moments in Oulu was see­ing the north­ern lights for the first time. It’s hard to describe the feel­ing – the lights danc­ing across the sky in such vibrant col­ors. It’s a mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence that I’ll car­ry with me for­ev­er.

“North­ern lights in Oulu. It’s a mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence that I’ll car­ry with me for­ev­er.“

As a spouse of a researcher, it wasn’t easy at first to estab­lish a net­work here. Mov­ing to a new coun­try can feel iso­lat­ing, espe­cial­ly when you don’t speak the lan­guage flu­ent­ly.

But through attend­ing com­mu­ni­ty events, tak­ing cours­es, and con­nect­ing with peo­ple through my intern­ship, I’ve been able to cre­ate a sup­port sys­tem that has made all the dif­fer­ence.

For any­one think­ing about mov­ing to Oulu, my advice is to give it time and be open to the oppor­tu­ni­ties this city offers. Oulu is calm but full of pos­si­bil­i­ties, espe­cial­ly if you love nature and are look­ing for a place to grow.

I’m excit­ed to see what the future holds for me here, and I know there’s still so much more to dis­cov­er.