“Dur­ing my first walks in Oulu, I felt like I was in a fairy tale”

Déb­o­ra Oliveira, 34, is from São Paulo, Brazil. Besides doing a master’s in edu­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, she is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions trainee at Oulu Tal­ent Hub. In Brazil, she used to work for an NGO with migrants and refugees, so she is hap­py to con­tin­ue work­ing with migrant and inter­na­tion­al peo­ple in Fin­land. “I see Oulu as a city of oppor­tu­ni­ties. And I am hav­ing such a great time here that I am con­sid­er­ing stay­ing in Fin­land to pur­sue a PhD”, Déb­o­ra says.

Who

My name is Déb­o­ra Oliveira. I’m 34 years old, and I’m from São Paulo, Brazil. I have a bachelor’s and teach­ing degree in lan­guages and lit­er­a­ture and a post­grad­u­a­tion degree in cul­ture and edu­ca­tion. Cur­rent­ly, I am a master’s stu­dent in edu­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Why

I have always want­ed to do a master’s degree abroad, and I was search­ing for Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries or places that had inter­na­tion­al pro­grammes in Eng­lish. Fin­land is renowned for its qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, so I checked the Study­in­fo web­site to see which master’s degrees were in offer. When I came across Edg­lo (the nick­name of edu­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion togeth­er), I decid­ed to apply because it had all the areas I want­ed to study.

Besides, I could get a schol­ar­ship, and the stu­dent res­i­dence and liv­ing expens­es were more afford­able than what I found in oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries. Stu­dents in Fin­land have a lot of ben­e­fits, and you can get dis­counts almost every­where, from eat­ing in restau­rants to trav­el­ling by train.

The idea of learn­ing a new lan­guage also got me excit­ed, as I’m pas­sion­ate about learn­ing lan­guages, and Finnish is the sev­enth lan­guage I am study­ing. Besides Por­tuguese, my native lan­guage, I also speak Eng­lish and Span­ish and have stud­ied Ger­man, French, and Ara­bic.

I have been here for sev­en months now. Before I start­ed my master’s, I had nev­er been to Fin­land. My first expe­ri­ence in the coun­try was direct­ly in Oulu. Though I had to fly to Helsin­ki from Brazil, I only stayed at the air­port wait­ing for the night train to bring me here.

What

While trav­el­ling on the train from the south of Helsin­ki to the north of Oulu, I was amazed by the for­est land­scape all the way through here. Dur­ing my first days in Oulu, two things called my atten­tion: how the city is calm and silent and the nat­ur­al land­scapes you come across every­where.

Com­ing from a megac­i­ty such as São Paulo, it can take some time for one to get adjust­ed to a relax­ing vibe. I remem­ber dur­ing my first walks in the city, I felt like I was in a fairy tale due to the amount of green­ery and water every­where. Also, when I spot­ted red mush­rooms or saw hares run­ning at night, I real­ly thought I was inside a child’s sto­ry.

I live by myself here in a cosy, small stu­dio apart­ment near the city cen­tre. It’s a stu­dent res­i­den­cy, but it’s not inside the cam­pus in Lin­nan­maa. I real­ly like liv­ing in a cen­tral region, and my neigh­bour­hood is great, because my street is near the sea and just in front of one of Oulu’s biggest parks called Hol­li­ha­ka.

I think peo­ple are extreme­ly polite. I like how every­one greets me when I enter or leave places, such as shops or super­mar­kets, with a ‘Hei!’, Moi!’ or ‘Moik­ka’ and ‘Kiitos’. Also, I feel that life here is sim­ple, yet organ­ised. It’s nice to see peo­ple cycling every­where, even old­er peo­ple, or going for a walk in the park at the end of the day.

I think one of the things that was most cul­tur­al­ly shock­ing for me about Oulu was the ‘bus eti­quette’. When peo­ple wait at the bus stop or look for a seat inside the bus, they always keep a dis­tance from each oth­er.

At São Paulo, we are so used to hav­ing crowd­ed bus­es that we can­not afford to choose where to sit. And the dis­tances are so long that one cer­tain­ly gets tired of stand­ing. Here, in Oulu, it is the oppo­site: peo­ple often choose to sit in a row that’s emp­ty and rarely sit beside some­one else, unless you know the per­son.

Where

Besides doing my master’s at the uni­ver­si­ty, I am a com­mu­ni­ca­tions trainee at Business­Oulu for the Oulu Tal­ent Hub project. I am also a vol­un­teer at Red Cross Oulu in a project sup­port­ing Ukraini­ans arriv­ing in the city. In Brazil, I used to work for an NGO with migrants and asy­lum seek­ers, so it is great to con­tin­ue work­ing with migrants and inter­na­tion­al peo­ple here.

Though Oulu is a qui­et city, I must con­fess that I have been quite busy here. I try to enjoy the city as much as I can, so I love hang­ing out with my friends from uni­ver­si­ty and get­ting to know new places. We often make bon­fires in parks and go to Nal­likari or to the sauna.

It is clear that Oulu is a city in expan­sion. Many projects have been imple­ment­ed to fos­ter the city’s growth, and you can see new con­struc­tions start­ing around the city. So, I see Oulu as a city of oppor­tu­ni­ties. And I am hav­ing such a great time here that I am con­sid­er­ing stay­ing in Fin­land to pur­sue a PhD.

How

Before com­ing to Fin­land, I high­ly rec­om­mend that peo­ple do some research on what life is like here. There are many online resources (web­sites and social media) with infor­ma­tion and facts about the coun­try. To name some, This is Fin­land, Study in Fin­land, Busi­ness Fin­land, and the Finnish Embassy’s social media accounts. It is good to have some idea about the coun­try and cul­ture before land­ing here.

After mov­ing in, if you want to feel more inte­grat­ed into the city, you should def­i­nite­ly get to know as many places as pos­si­ble and see what the city has to offer and what kinds of facil­i­ties are avail­able for res­i­dents. Besides, try to have hob­bies and par­tic­i­pate in events in order to net­work as much as pos­si­ble. You nev­er know what oppor­tu­ni­ties might come, and hav­ing con­nec­tions is the best way to stay tuned.

If you want to work or do an intern­ship here – which I high­ly rec­om­mend, because you can grow your net­work – you must keep an eye on Oulu’s social media chan­nels (such as City of Oulu, Business­Oulu, Vil­la Vic­tor, Vis­it Oulu, and so on). If you study at the uni­ver­si­ty, there are many events hap­pen­ing as well.

I would say you should keep in mind you might face some pos­si­ble cul­tur­al shocks, depend­ing on which coun­try you are from – but you will face noth­ing that could not be over­come. For instance, I am a very talk­a­tive per­son, and I believe Brazil­ians tend to be very expan­sive. After com­ing to Fin­land, I soon noticed that Finns don’t talk loud­ly; they enjoy being silent. So, I am try­ing to learn how to be com­fort­able observ­ing silence as well.

More­over, Oulu has been a place for my buck­et-list expe­ri­ences. Here, I could see snow for the first time and expe­ri­ence what it is like to have just four hours of day­light dur­ing win­ter.

Besides, I love liv­ing in a city where I can see auro­ra bore­alis danc­ing in the sky every now and then. See­ing the north­ern lights has always been on my list, and so far, I have seen them three times. And it’s great to know they’re just around the cor­ner – or rather, I should say they’re just up in the sky.

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.

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at oulutalenthub.fi

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Vik­tors Sobolevs: “If you want to work in Oulu, believe in your­self and push hard”

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Tama­ra Louis: “Oulu is a per­fect envi­ron­ment for fam­i­lies”

Sharmin Farah: “North­ern Lights – the best thing to expe­ri­ence while liv­ing in Oulu”