Max’s Expe­ri­ence: Set­tling Down and Thriv­ing in Oulu

Max’s jour­ney from a small town near Lon­don to set­tling down in Oulu is noth­ing short of inspir­ing! From unex­pect­ed twists in his career to find­ing a sense of belong­ing in a new coun­try, Max shares his amaz­ing expe­ri­ence.

Meet Max

Hi, I’m Max, and if some­one had said to me at the start of my col­lege years that I would be set­tled down in my mid-thir­ties, as well as mar­ried, work­ing at a decent job and liv­ing in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent coun­try, I would have won­dered what plan­et they came from. And yet here we are!

I grew up in Guild­ford, which isn’t that far from Lon­don (just a 45-minute train jour­ney south of Water­loo). I grad­u­at­ed with a BA (Hons) in Jour­nal­ism in 2010 from the Uni­ver­si­ty for the Cre­ative Arts in a town called Farn­ham. After­wards, my career took an unex­pect­ed twist as I end­ed up doing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing for a local dis­abled chil­dren and young per­sons’ char­i­ty.

Why Oulu

It wasn’t until 2017 that the big move arrived. I had met my now-wife, who’s from Oulu (an Oul­u­lainen), eleven years ear­li­er in Guild­ford and her orig­i­nal plan was to stay for about…six to twelve months. Very ear­ly on in our rela­tion­ship, the idea of one day head­ing up to the north was raised. It was 2014 when we dis­cussed it more seri­ous­ly, since we felt as if we had reached a point in our own lives where the tim­ing was right.

Even before we start­ed pack­ing a nev­er-end­ing amount of card­board box­es, I had been to Oulu so many times. Ini­tial­ly I kind of vis­it­ed as a tourist, but then after a while it became like any oth­er trip to see fam­i­ly. So, I’ve been in a posi­tion where I have watched it grow and devel­op over a sig­nif­i­cant chunk of time.

It didn’t take long, both as a vis­i­tor and then as a res­i­dent, to real­ly enjoy being here. The forests, the fact that every­thing is basi­cal­ly with­in walk­ing dis­tance, the dra­mat­ic change of seasons…even to say that the place is unique is under­selling it slight­ly.

Bal­anc­ing Work and Life

I prop­er­ly start­ed my language/integration stud­ies in Sep­tem­ber 2019. It was a very unusu­al expe­ri­ence to be in class­rooms again (which then went online due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic), but that learn­ing laid the foun­da­tions for my under­stand­ing of suomek­si (Finnish), which is still improv­ing grad­u­al­ly.

Even though I have hob­bies at home and in the city (lis­ten­ing to music, my own writ­ing, going to see AC Oulu (Oulu’s foot­ball club), etc.), it took a while to find friends of my own. Even­tu­al­ly, things clicked into place around late 2020/early 2021 (through work practice/työharjoittelu) and that was the first time I felt like I tru­ly belonged here. It sounds awful­ly melo­dra­mat­ic, but it’s true. These friend­ships keep me ground­ed and make me feel want­ed.

For me, job seek­ing was a bal­anc­ing act between per­se­ver­ing and being kind to myself when faced with rejec­tion or dis­ap­point­ment. When I final­ly got my foot in the door at Business­Oulu in the autumn of 2022 as a trainee, every­thing grad­u­al­ly changed.

“It didn’t take long to real­ly enjoy being here. The forests, the fact that every­thing is basi­cal­ly with­in walk­ing dis­tance, the dra­mat­ic change of seasons…even to say that the place is unique is under­selling it slight­ly.“

I am cur­rent­ly respon­si­ble for sup­port­ing and pro­mot­ing the ICT clus­ter in Oulu through var­i­ous activ­i­ties. In this role I’ve been entrust­ed to share ideas and take ini­tia­tive with projects, which is enor­mous­ly grat­i­fy­ing. There’s also been sit­u­a­tions that are beyond any­thing I thought I could do at the start of my career (e.g. host­ing the IceTech Sum­mit as part of Polar Bear Pitch­ing 2024).

The rea­son I’ve been able to achieve all of this mov­ing is pure­ly down to the envi­ron­ment I live/work in, as well as the sup­port from those that I am clos­est to. Hon­est­ly, long may that con­tin­ue.