Jawad Malik: “All you have to do is to break the shell”

Jawad Malik came here from Pak­istan to study master’s in edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy and pur­sue his pas­sion in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion. Cur­rent­ly, he is work­ing at Nokia as a Sys­tem per­for­mance Engi­neer.

Who

Hel­lo, I am Jawad Malik. I am cur­rent­ly work­ing at Nokia as a Sys­tem per­for­mance Engi­neer.

I came here to study master’s in edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy and pur­sue my pas­sion in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion. My jour­ney is a unique one, I must say. Not every­one trav­els the long path I have tak­en.

I had fin­ished my stud­ies relat­ed to Elec­tri­cal and elec­tron­ics engi­neer­ing spe­cial­iza­tion in wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion in 2009 in Pak­istan, then I went to Swe­den to fin­ish my mas­ters in master’s in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing with empha­sis on radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion engi­neer­ing.

After which I got back home, worked a few years in the tele­com indus­try and took the edu­ca­tion route and stud­ied edu­ca­tion plan­ning and man­age­ment. With my expe­ri­ence in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion and edu­ca­tion, I decid­ed to embark on yet anoth­er master’s degree jour­ney, this time here in Fin­land. My three years of hard work have final­ly paid off. I am now work­ing for Nokia. It has been a long, unique jour­ney, but I love every part of it.

Why

While in Swe­den, I real­ized how much poten­tial there is in the Nordic coun­tries which are usu­al­ly over­looked by inter­na­tion­al stu­dents. So, when I fin­ished study­ing edu­ca­tion plan­ning and man­age­ment in Pak­istan and gain­ing my much-need­ed expe­ri­ence, I also looked for options to study but this time in the field of edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy.

I believe that the social skills, work ethics, col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing etc. are quite impor­tant. I learned all these dur­ing my edu­ca­tion course. Now I had the tech­nol­o­gy back­ground and the social work ethics and col­lab­o­ra­tive skills. Of course, it is a dif­fer­ent idea. There aren’t many peo­ple who go down this path.

I want­ed to join the work­force after acquir­ing a tech­ni­cal back­ground, work ethics, and social sup­port skills. Fin­land is famous for edu­ca­tion. I liked the course that the uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu offered. It matched with what I want­ed to do. I took the leap of faith and here I am! Oulu was the first city I came to and liked the scenic town a lot.

What

I worked in the ser­vice indus­try while study­ing here. That is then when I saw the real peo­ple of Fin­land. They are gen­uine­ly nice and gen­tle.

What I love about the soci­ety here is that every­thing is as it is; straight­for­ward. I also like the gen­der equal­i­ty seen here. See­ing women as pas­tors and dri­ving heavy vehi­cles and being an active mem­ber of soci­ety are praise­wor­thy. It is great to see every­one work hard.

My fam­i­ly is here with me now. It was hard at first being away from my fam­i­ly for three years, although I used to go vis­it them. I have a diary where I wrote down all the experiences. When a per­son arrives at a new place, they have dif­fer­ent thoughts and dreams. Writ­ing them down helped dur­ing the rainy and snowy days.

What I appre­ci­ate about this coun­try is that it is safe. It has world-renowned edu­ca­tion, clean­est water, best air, wel­fare ser­vices and most impor­tant­ly work life bal­ance. What more can any­one ask for?

If I could redo every­thing over again, I would learn Finnish ear­li­er. There are many ways to learn here with many insti­tu­tions and these days, you can start with the basics through so many apps like dual lin­go. I would sug­gest it to any­one try­ing to come here to start before they arrive. Peo­ple here appre­ci­ate your efforts.

My advice to every expat would be, please talk. I have seen many peo­ple mov­ing back feel­ing iso­lat­ed and depressed because of win­ter and the dark­ness. Know that peo­ple are good. You must take the ini­tia­tive and talk to them.

Every­one will seem reserved, as if they are in a shell. All you have to do is to break that ‘shell’. Then you will see they will become your good friends. Don’t get annoyed by long dark days in win­ter, you have auro­ras and snow! Get social­iz­ing you will love it.

Where

There are a lot of leisure activ­i­ties hap­pen­ing around the year for chil­dren and stu­dents. The indoor game halls are a great to min­gle and net­work. We even have a crick­et match occa­sion­al­ly there!

Snow was some­thing we only saw dur­ing vaca­tions. It is lifestyle here, so all the win­ter sports are great to learn, and they offer most of them for free.

The ben­e­fits for stu­dents are plen­ty. The uni­ver­si­ty is very help­ful, the accom­mo­da­tions and food at the uni­ver­si­ty, the ser­vices pro­vid­ed around the city, every­thing is afford­able. There are jobs being offered to not only IT stu­dents but stu­dents in social sci­ences and oth­er fields as well.

There are com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions like Oulu Tal­ent Hub who are there to sup­port. If you have a fam­i­ly with you here, they will help with the inte­gra­tion cours­es for spous­es. It is like the city has a frame­work that sup­ports not only the per­son but the fam­i­ly com­ing along, which is unique and amaz­ing.

Every­thing is avail­able here if you look. Lan­guage cours­es, leisure activ­i­ties, you name it. So, make use of your time to get to know the peo­ple and the cul­ture you will nev­er be unhap­py.

I con­sid­er Oulu, Fin­land my sec­ond home. I want to invite the glob­al tal­ent to explore this part of world which has plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to offer. I hope your next des­ti­na­tion will be Oulu – cap­i­tal of cul­ture 2026, the cap­i­tal of north­ern Scan­di­navia.

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at oulutalenthub.fi
Text: She­fat Islam

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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Kamal Singh: “What I love about the peo­ple here is that they are great lis­ten­ers”

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Vanes­sa Phekani: “Don’t say ‘No’ when oppor­tu­ni­ties come knock­ing”

Gökhan Depo: “I know that in Oulu, I can trust peo­ple”

Maja Tern­ing: “I think every­body can find friends here”

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

Doris Yue believes her dreams will come true in Oulu

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

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

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

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

Kiran Pan­dit: ”Oulu is a help­ful place for inter­na­tion­al stu­dents, and peo­ple are nice”

Moustafa Khairi: “Win­ter activ­i­ties in Oulu make it an even more spe­cial city”