He had read on the net that Oulu is a high technology city and based on that he had expectations.

 Everything was much smaller than I had expected. I had had an image of a huge city. But the buildings are flat, no skyscrapers.

 Also for me the winter is cold!

Doing his own thing

Nicholas began studies in Raahe, a nearby town, which has a department of Oulu Polytechnic. From Raahe he however soon changed into Oulu, where there was exactly right kind of degree programme: Business Information Technology.

Nicholas is very happy about the quality of teaching in Finland. His study group is the first English group of the kind. The students are fifty-fifty Finnish and foreign. The only problems he has had are linguistic.

Nicholas Otieno Akallah has come a long way to study his dream profession. The 26-year-old Kenyan found the Finnish school Oulu Polytechnic on the internet. It took him a long time to get everything arranged

The high technology flat town Oulu

When he finally arrived, he was a bit surprised.

Sporty guy

Nicholas’ hobbies inc-
lude computer games, basketball, football and taekwondo. He is also excited about a new sports he’s about to begin: capoeira.

Busy guy

Nicholas doesn’t need to wonder what to do. The man doesn’t only study. He also has two jobs! From Monday to Friday he works in a supermarket and the weekends at a post office.

The arctic amusements

Though the Scandinavian climate

has turned out to be even colder than Nicholas expected, he hasn’t only suffered from it. In fact he has had a lot of fun skiing and making snowmen and snowangels (figures that one makes lying in snow).

When asked what Nicholas thinks on the Finnish sauna he tells that they have a bit similar thing in Kenya, but people don’t go there naked. Nicholas isn’t very much into the sauna culture.

Points of criticism

Nicholas has some criticism.

 In Finland young people don’t respect the old. You don’t see anyone giving their seat on a full bus to an elderly person. Also here you see a lot of young people drinking and smoking. Such doesn’t happen in Kenya.

A bright side

Nicholas likes to point out also a positive side. According to him Finns might be a bit shy, keeping to themselves, but they make good friends.