Arctic attitude is reality in our lives

Brazilian-born Francisco Antonio Correia Carneiro Junior is a veteran of Finland, having lived in the country already for three years by the time we speak. Carneiro completed his Bachelor’s degree at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences before coming to the Master’s programme in International Business Management at the University of Oulu. Carneiro has settled in not just because of his studies: he is married to a Finn and a father of a five-year-old.

“It’s been easy to adapt to Oulu,” Carneiro says. “Moving from Tampere to Oulu was okay, Finland is Finland. There is a strong Finnish identity and the differences between regions don’t seem as big to me, because in a huge country like Brazil the regional differences are on a different scale.”

Carneiro says that his adjustment to Finland was also easy because of his wife’s family, a group of very nice people. Not every international student coming to Finland has in-laws, of course, but he says that the Kummi Family Programme is very important and helpful.

“If you have a family here, it is so much easier. They help you in getting around, finding stuff, going to social activities and so on.”

Carneiro says that the decision to come to Oulu was facilitated by the study subjects on offer at the university. The ones in Oulu were extremely connected with relevant issues in the world and very applicable to his professional life, Carneiro says.

“We’re focusing a lot on management change, and seems that everything we study is related to change. How change happens in an organization, how it happens in the world at an ever-increasing pace. In order to survive, we need to understand change.”

Carneiro thinks there will be exciting new changes and opportunities in business that are coming up because of technological advancements, like 5G and 6G telecommunication technologies.

“They will allow the creation of completely disruptive business models and services which are nonexistent today. We can find innovative solutions to our most pressing societal needs. I feel that the combination of technology together with an attitude to change the world for the better is an amazing way of revolutionizing the way we live,” Carneiro elaborates.

Approaching his studies from such a perspective, it is no surprise that Carneiro plans to continue after Master’s to getting a doctorate. He also wants to promote the University of Oulu as an option for international students, especially Brazilian ones.

“I joined the Ambassador programme to make new friends, because I’m very social and like to go out, but also because Brazilian students don’t know about this option, " Carneiro says.

"This is a great university in many fields, such as telecommunication, and it’s so well connected to the business sector.”

And what about the Arctic attitude? That ties in too, Carneiro says.

“To me, Arctic attitude is perseverance. It takes perseverance to build such a high quality research environment at such a high latitude. Both the university and the city of Oulu provide an amazing infrastructure for living and studying. So, considering these, Arctic attitude is reality in our lives,” Carneiro says.