Student Story

Eric Littell

Hello! I’m Eric, from Brazil. I grew up in Sao Paulo state.

Fun facts about Brazil: it’s the worlds 5th largest country and is made of 27 states so I guess it could be called USB (United States of Brazil). 🙂

I grew up mostly with my father since my parents got divorced when I was young. My great-grandfather was originally from England and my grandfather taught me English ever since I was a small kid.

I’ve been studying nutrition and after I finished school I took a job in a warehouse for a large company in Brazil. It was good but not the type of job that would satisfy me for the long term. After a while, I started to teach English. In Brazil, only about 5% speak  English so it was exciting. After teaching English for 5 years  I  became a coordinator.

So far so good? Well, not really! It was a beautiful evening when we were drinking in front of my friend’s house and  two  guys with motorcycles rushed ahead towards us. Give us your money and phones they were yelling with guns pointed in our heads!

I decided to leave Brazil! In my mind was England, since my roots are from there. Many years ago my mother met a Fin and she already moved to Finland. She’s been living here for 10 years. I came to see her cause it had been 5 years since I saw her last time. She suggested me to study here since she studied at Xamk as well. Luckily I got accepted. I liked Finland from the beginning the system works very good everything is organised except of weather that is so unpredictable. I like how people respect the law here, they are shy yet helpful, food is good apart from mämmi.

Being able to speak English all the time allowed me to have more intercultural experiences, that led to a wider international understanding. Absorbing different educational material, movies, music etc. led me thinking out of the box that I grew up. In the future, I’d like to see my self Working in an international company Google is one of my favourites. I’d like to continue masters program and working in the business area.  If I don’t come with any start-up hopefully it’s gonna be google.

What’s your story?

If you’d like to share your story or any idea,  send me an email and let’s have a coffee and talk about it.

 baruk001@edu.xamk.fi