From Tehran to Oulu – The Inspir­ing Path of Sara Saroukhani

Sara stud­ied her master´s degree in Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. She is cur­rent­ly work­ing in KONE as a mate­r­i­al spe­cial­ist in Espoo.

Who

I’m orig­i­nal­ly from Tehran, Iran, and my jour­ney to Oulu began back in Novem­ber 2020 when I decid­ed to pur­sue my master’s in envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing here.

Fin­land had always been on my radar, and after explor­ing var­i­ous mas­ter’s pro­grams, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu felt like the per­fect fit for me. It’s been an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore my favorite field while embrac­ing all the amaz­ing things this city has to offer.

What

First­ly, let me share a bit about myself. I com­plet­ed my Bach­e­lor’s in Mate­r­i­al Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing in Iran, where my pas­sion for envi­ron­men­tal issues sparked my inter­est in con­tribut­ing find­ing solu­tions in this field. This was basi­cal­ly the main rea­son why I chose envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing pro­gram.

Out­side of aca­d­e­mics, I enjoy play­ing music, the Iran­ian instru­ment called san­toor, and play­ing fut­sal as sport. Also, I can describe myself as some­one who is adapt­able, active, and always open to learn­ing new things.

Adjust­ing to a new envi­ron­ment was­n’t easy ini­tial­ly, but I believe that these traits sig­nif­i­cant­ly aid­ed me in nav­i­gat­ing the chal­lenges of set­tling into Fin­land. Won­der­ing about how these char­ac­ter­is­tics helped me? I’d love to share my per­son­al expe­ri­ences with you!

How

Upon receiv­ing my admis­sion in Oulu, I was eager to know more about the city, uni­ver­si­ty, and gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of stu­dent expe­ri­ences. I rec­og­nized the invalu­able insights that con­nect­ing with fel­low stu­dents could pro­vide, giv­en their first­hand expe­ri­ence of what I was about to start soon. Learn­ing about the uni­ver­si­ty ambas­sadors, who shared their expe­ri­ences, became an ini­tial point of inter­est for me, pri­mar­i­ly through Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty’s Insta­gram account. I found it fas­ci­nat­ing that stu­dent ran the uni­ver­si­ty’s social media, it inspired me to reach out to a few ambas­sadors who kind­ly shared help­ful tips.

When I arrived in Oulu dur­ing the chal­lenges of COVID, I real­ized the neces­si­ty of active­ly shap­ing a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment around me, there­fore, I tried to get involved in var­i­ous activ­i­ties and even applied to become a uni­ver­si­ty ambas­sador myself! It was a fan­tas­tic tran­si­tion from seek­ing help to being a source of sup­port for oth­ers. This expe­ri­ence not only helped me make friends but also taught me the impor­tance of being proac­tive in net­work­ing and self-improve­ment.

”It’s cru­cial not to lose hope and be con­sis­tent in job search­ing.”

Dur­ing the first year of my mas­ter’s pro­gram, my pri­ma­ry focus was on the ambas­sador pro­gram and my intern­ship at the uni­ver­si­ty. Until I received an email from the uni­ver­si­ty regard­ing the Eras­mus exchange oppor­tu­ni­ty, I had­n’t tak­en it seri­ous­ly. How­ev­er, on the last day of the appli­ca­tion dead­line, I decid­ed to apply, and sur­pris­ing­ly, I was accept­ed to study for a semes­ter in Barcelona. It turned out to be one of the most incred­i­ble expe­ri­ences of my life, and I am immense­ly grate­ful to the uni­ver­si­ty for pro­vid­ing me with this oppor­tu­ni­ty.

The major­i­ty of my sec­ond year revolved around com­plet­ing my mas­ter’s the­sis and active­ly apply­ing for jobs. After sev­er­al months of search­ing, I was for­tu­nate enough to get a job. I’d like to high­light the chal­lenge that inter­na­tion­al stu­dents, espe­cial­ly due to lan­guage bar­ri­ers, face in find­ing a job after grad­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, it’s cru­cial not to lose hope and be con­sis­tent in job search­ing.

Where

I thor­ough­ly enjoyed my time as a mas­ter’s stu­dent in Oulu, pri­mar­i­ly due to the beau­ty of nature that sur­rounds the city. The peace­ful sur­round­ing pro­vides a sense of tran­quil­i­ty, peace, and safe­ty. The uni­ver­si­ty hosts a mul­ti­tude of diverse orga­ni­za­tions and activ­i­ties, pro­vid­ing a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet new peo­ple and explore fresh expe­ri­ences.

More­over, based on my expe­ri­ence, Oulu is ded­i­cat­ed in enhanc­ing the strengths of its inter­na­tion­al peo­ple and stu­dents´ per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment. For exam­ple Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu, Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Cen­tre Vil­la Vic­tor, Bloom… The city offers numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties that can facil­i­tate your growth in your cho­sen path. It’s essen­tial to remain proac­tive in seek­ing out these oppor­tu­ni­ties and con­nect­ing with the right indi­vid­u­als who can guide you along this jour­ney.

The vibrant land­scape of Oulu is teem­ing with pos­si­bil­i­ties, await­ing those who are will­ing to active­ly pur­sue them.