The incred­i­ble jour­ney of Chiara Boset­ti

Oulu Tal­ent Hub Ambas­sador Chiara Boset­ti, orig­i­nal­ly from Italy, came to Oulu one year ago. “I had great expec­ta­tions, and I cer­tain­ly got what I was look­ing for”, she says.

Who

My name is Chiara Boset­ti, I’m 27 years old, and I am an Oulu Tal­ent Hub Ambas­sador.

One year ago, I came to Oulu from Italy to begin this incred­i­ble jour­ney. I had great expec­ta­tions, and I cer­tain­ly got what I was look­ing for. In fact, I’m cur­rent­ly work­ing as a doc­tor­al researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu in its Pro­tein and Struc­tur­al Biol­o­gy Research Unit.

Why

Back in Feb­ru­ary 2021, I was about to grad­u­ate with my Master’s degree in Mol­e­c­u­lar and Med­ical Biotech­nol­o­gy. I was in beau­ti­ful Verona, the Ital­ian city of lovers, and deep inside me was a feel­ing that I need­ed some­thing new.

I want­ed to start a career as a researcher abroad, liv­ing in a coun­try that I had nev­er even vis­it­ed, one where I would expe­ri­ence every­thing from scratch. This was when I real­ized that I could find this type of free­dom in won­der­ful Fin­land – a coun­try where the nature is pris­tine and wild, where you can live com­fort­ably and where the most cut­ting-edge research is done. Who could ask for more?

Where

The next step was to choose my new city. Hav­ing lived in Kyoto, Japan, I’ve already expe­ri­enced liv­ing in a big city. And as much as I loved liv­ing there, this time I want­ed to be in a less bustling place. I was eager to set­tle in a peace­ful town, but one which also had a tru­ly cos­mopoli­tan feel. A quite demand­ing request, you would think, but I wasn’t dis­ap­point­ed when I found out about Oulu.

First of all, Oulu is a fas­ci­nat­ing place which offers the urban com­forts of a mod­ern city while at the same time giv­ing you a taste of Arc­tic nature.

Sec­ond, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu is a top-ranked, inno­v­a­tive inter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty where people’s well-being is of utmost impor­tance. I also sim­ply love work­ing there because it’s the place where I’ve met won­der­ful peo­ple who inspire me every day.

What

I would have to say that Oulu is not only nature and work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. What makes Oulu real­ly unique is its peo­ple. The envi­ron­ment is dynam­ic and inter­na­tion­al, and the peo­ple are friend­ly, open and sin­cere.

I dis­agree with the typ­i­cal stereo­types that depict Finns as anti-social and closed peo­ple, some­thing that I believe may have risen from the fact that they val­ue pri­va­cy, qui­et and per­son­al space. From my expe­ri­ence, con­ver­sa­tions here are franker and more gen­uine.

Here you can tru­ly be your­self. In Oulu, I can pur­sue the same hob­bies I was used to in my home coun­try. For exam­ple, I enjoy acrylic pour­ing paint­ing, board games, video games and hik­ing. On top of all that, I recent­ly start­ed poly­mer clay sculpt­ing.

How

When I first moved to Oulu, what was ben­e­fi­cial for me was to keep myself con­stant­ly out of my com­fort zone.

My advice? Talk to new peo­ple every day, engage your­self in new activ­i­ties and nev­er set­tle down. In this way, you can expe­ri­ence the wide range of experiences this city has to offer, and you will be sur­prised at what you can achieve!

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at oulutalenthub.fi

Oulu Tal­ent Hub

• Oulu Tal­ent Hub brings togeth­er and devel­ops region­al oppor­tu­ni­ties and ser­vices for inter­na­tion­al recruit­ment.
• Oulu Tal­ent Hub offers tal­ents, for exam­ple, con­tacts with local com­pa­nies, match­mak­ing events and info ses­sions, com­pa­ny vis­its, a tan­dem mod­el for intern­ship pro­grammes and career coun­selling. For Oulu Tal­ent Hub, inter­na­tion­al tal­ent is defined as inter­na­tion­al spe­cial­ists, employ­ees, researchers and stu­dents.
• Oulu Tal­ent Hub aims to pro­mote inter­na­tion­al tal­ent employ­ment to com­pa­nies in the Oulu region and open up employ­ment paths for inter­na­tion­al tal­ent.
• Project part­ners are Business­Oulu, Oulu Cham­ber of Com­merce, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and Oulu Voca­tion­al Col­lege.
• The project is fund­ed by The Euro­pean Social Fund, ESF.
• Learn more about Oulu Tal­ent Hub at oulutalenthub.fi.

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Jun­naid Iqbal: ”You must come to Oulu with an open mind and a big smile”

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