From Hol­i­day Dream to Finnish Real­i­ty

Have you ever been on a hol­i­day and wished life could be like that all the time? For Sophie Platt she felt like that on her first vis­it to Fin­land, so made the choice to fol­low that feel­ing and move to Oulu. She had been inter­est­ed in pur­su­ing a mas­ter’s degree for some time and decid­ed there was no bet­ter place to do that than in the north of Fin­land.

Pre­vi­ous­ly Sophie Platt had worked in a range of roles back in her home coun­try of the UK. She wasn’t afraid of change as she had left a career in bank­ing to retrain as a teacher back in 2018, so at the age of 32, pack­ing up her things and mov­ing to a new coun­try was more excit­ing than daunt­ing.

Her expe­ri­ence as a teacher with respon­si­bil­i­ty for the com­put­ing cur­ricu­lum meant that she had devel­oped a keen inter­est in tech­nol­o­gy-sup­port­ed learn­ing, mean­ing the Learn­ing, Edu­ca­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy (LET) master’s pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu fit her inter­ests and expe­ri­ence well.

The Kääri­jä Effect

Fin­land had been on Sophie’s trav­el wish list for a while, but it was moved to the top of the list after she watched Euro­vi­sion in 2023 and became a fan of the Finnish entry for that year – Kääri­jä.

After hear­ing Cha Cha Cha for the first time in the grand final and enjoy­ing Käärijä’s ener­gy even with­out under­stand­ing the lyrics, Sophie was hooked. Soon she had looked up oth­er songs and become famil­iar with the world of the man in green.

After print­ing out the lyrics and doing her best to learn them, she booked her first trip to Fin­land to coin­cide with some of his biggest con­certs yet – a sum­mer fes­ti­val and a sup­port­ing slot for a pop­u­lar female Finnish pop artist, Kai­ja Koo, at the Olympic Sta­di­um.

– There was a tight sched­ule on my first day, because I went straight from the air­port to a music fes­ti­val in Espoo. I made it just in time to catch Käärijä’s per­for­mance and it was every­thing I hoped it would be.

Finland’s Calm Embrace

Not only did Kääri­jä impress Sophie, but Fin­land as a whole was a place she fell in love with on that first trip. She prais­es the calm and peace­ful atmos­phere here and the slow­er pace of life com­pared to her experiences in the UK.

– Wher­ev­er I end­ed up in Fin­land, be it in the for­est, in the heart of the city, or even on a sold-out train ride, the atmos­phere felt peace­ful and relaxed. I felt like I could take a big deep breath of super fresh and clean air and exist as myself final­ly. It was straight after I got home from my first trip that I looked into apply­ing to study here. I couldn’t get enough!

A City That Sparkles

After falling in love with the coun­try, Sophie want­ed to explore more – and that led her north to Oulu. She returned for more trips to see more cities around the coun­try and first step foot in Oulu in April 2024.

She had com­plet­ed her inter­view for a place on the LET course and want­ed to come and see the city she would end up mov­ing her life to.

– I loved the lit­tle riv­er run­ning through the city cen­tre and I thought it was a vibrant city that had every­thing you would need. On one of my first nights dur­ing that vis­it I end­ed up at Nal­likari beach watch­ing the North­ern Lights danc­ing across the skies.

From Suit­cas­es to Set­tling In

Of course, vis­it­ing a city and liv­ing in it are two very dif­fer­ent experiences, as Sophie soon dis­cov­ered after secur­ing her place and final­ly arriv­ing in August last year.

– Pack­ing up my life in the UK was dif­fi­cult and I remem­ber the stress­ful feel­ing of arriv­ing in Oulu with two big suit­cas­es worth of stuff, not know­ing how I was going to get them to my new apart­ment.

It wasn’t long until Sophie found her way, with some help of a friend­ly local here in Oulu.

– I also remem­ber the bus dri­ver being super friend­ly and help­ing me nav­i­gate my way to where I need­ed to be. It’s that friend­ly feel­ing that made me relax a lit­tle and realise that I would be alright after all.

Find­ing Com­mu­ni­ty

Once the ini­tial logis­tics were han­dled, Sophie turned her atten­tion to some­thing just as impor­tant: find­ing her com­mu­ni­ty. Mak­ing con­nec­tions came eas­i­ly to her as she joined many dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tives around the city to net­work and find oth­er like­mind­ed peo­ple.

– Some of my favourite activ­i­ties or events have been attend­ing arts and crafts evenings for Eng­lish speak­ers, vis­it­ing local arts and music fes­ti­vals like Lumo and Frozen Peo­ple, attend­ing stu­dent events with the Uni­ver­si­ty such as the row­ing com­pe­ti­tion, and the many hours I’ve spent in Finnish lan­guage class­es.

“I have Finnish sub­ti­tles turned on for every­thing I watch on the TV.”

Learn­ing Finnish One Lyric at a Time

Being part of the com­mu­ni­ty also meant embrac­ing the lan­guage, and Sophie dove in with enthu­si­asm. She start­ed her lan­guage learn­ing jour­ney all the way back in 2023 when she was high­light­ing print­ed lyric sheets in an attempt to learn her favourite Kääri­jä song lyrics.

– The key for me is con­sis­ten­cy and full immer­sion. I have Finnish sub­ti­tles turned on for every­thing I watch on the TV and I’m not afraid to try watch­ing shows only in Finnish. The many cours­es I’ve attend­ed have helped me build some great foun­da­tions, but I’ve found the most improve­ments are made while inter­act­ing with the lan­guage in a more nat­ur­al way like try­ing to read signs or find some­thing par­tic­u­lar in a shop.

She also has racked up a rather impres­sive streak on Duolin­go, hav­ing now run out of new Finnish con­tent to learn there. Her ded­i­ca­tion to the Finnish lan­guage seems to have paid off as she says she now can under­stand much more of what’s going on around her.

– My next goal is to be a bit braver and speak more Finnish with locals, but that will come in time. Attend­ing things like Vil­la Victor’s cof­fee club where every­one is prac­tis­ing togeth­er is a nice way to build con­fi­dence before going out to speak to natives.

Oppor­tu­ni­ties Unlocked

The biggest oppor­tu­ni­ties for Sophie haven’t just been learn­ing the lan­guage, she has also tak­en on many oth­er things. For exam­ple, she is a uni­ver­si­ty ambas­sador, a stu­dent tutor for incom­ing inter­na­tion­al stu­dents and a com­mit­tee mem­ber for her pro­gramme.

These roles allow her to gain insights into high­er edu­ca­tion process­es in Fin­land and to share her experiences with oth­er prospec­tive stu­dents. She also joined Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu as an intern over the sum­mer months, giv­ing her a chance to delve deep­er into work­ing life cul­ture in Fin­land.

– I promised myself when I moved here that I would grab oppor­tu­ni­ties that pre­sent­ed them­selves to me, and I cer­tain­ly have done that. There are so many dif­fer­ent ways to get involved with lots of dif­fer­ent things here in Oulu, you can’t let the thought of there being a lan­guage bar­ri­er or dif­fer­ence in cul­tures get in the way.

Kääri­jä and Karaoke

Through it all, one pas­sion remained con­stant: music. And in Fin­land, that pas­sion found a per­fect home. Sophie’s love of Kääri­jä hasn’t gone away and she still attends many of his con­certs. He is play­ing in an upcom­ing fes­ti­val in Oulu – QStock – and Sophie is ready to be front and cen­tre singing the lyrics loud for all to hear.

– Music is a big thing here in Fin­land and Oulu. There are so many fes­ti­vals in the sum­mer all over the coun­try, and I’m lucky enough to have tick­ets for one here in Oulu. Kääri­jä is the artist I’m most look­ing for­ward to see­ing but there are many oth­er Finnish artists I’ve grown to enjoy since mov­ing here.

Anoth­er hob­by Sophie has found a home for here in Oulu is karaoke. She was sur­prised it was a pop­u­lar past time in Oulu.

– I didn’t realise before mov­ing here that karaoke was such a big part of Finnish cul­ture, and I’m always hap­py to get on the micro­phone and show off my hard work learn­ing the Finnish lyrics to a small reper­toire of songs. It’s also nice to see local peo­ple let loose and enjoy them­selves up on the stage too, as it goes against the stereo­typ­i­cal ‘intro­vert­ed Finn’ image that is some­times por­trayed.

Peace, Nature, and Pos­si­bil­i­ty

Look­ing back on her time in Oulu so far, Sophie sees more than just a change of scenery—she sees trans­for­ma­tion.

– I’d love to stay here in Oulu after my stud­ies as I’ve made so many friends here, both inter­na­tion­al and Finnish. I feel much more like myself here – able to relax out in nature and take life at a slow­er pace, enjoy­ing every moment rather than hav­ing days and weeks rush by full of stress and wor­ry.

She isn’t sure what oppor­tu­ni­ties she will encounter next, but she knows her time here in Oulu so far has been one to remem­ber.

– There are, of course, chal­leng­ing moments and times I miss home, par­tic­u­lar­ly my fam­i­ly, but over­all, this move to Oulu has allowed me to regain con­trol of my peace and give myself the con­fi­dence and space to be authen­ti­cal­ly me.