Hamish Gunn, originally from Inverness, Scotland, moved to Helsinki in 2019 to pursue the Russian Studies Master's programme at the University of Helsinki, now renamed Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies. Since graduating, he has explored diverse career paths, from working as an International Student Advisor at the university to training as a Royal Navy officer. Now 31, Hamish is focused on establishing himself in Finland, with his degree offering career opportunities in both the government and private sectors.
I’m originally from Scotland, born in Inverness in the Highlands. Before I moved to Helsinki, I lived in Edinburgh, where I did an MA with Honours in History. For work, I started a personal training business, which gave me the flexibility to work and travel between the UK and Finland, as my now-wife and I were seeing each other over long distance.
I applied to the MARS programme because I wanted to further my education and the course sounded very interesting and promising. For my MA at Edinburgh, I wrote my dissertation on Soviet threat perceptions regarding Operation RYAN vis-a-vis NATO Exercise ABLE ARCHER 83, where I looked into looking into how Soviet intelligence agencies gathered information, their relationship with the Politburo, and the overall impact on geopolitical relations. I essentially wanted to continue my learning and study this area more, which is what I did — I finished my studies with a thesis on deterrence during a time of war, looking at the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia’s approach to deterrence and how events are impacting deterrence in practice. I was impressed by the academic staff and the deep knowledge base of the Aleksanteri Institute.
My initial thoughts of the program were that it was diverse and covered much ground in detail. I got quite an in-depth baptism into areas that I had not covered in my initial studies by lecturers who were from Russia and who, in some cases, knew a few of the prominent individuals from the wild times in Russia during the late ‘90s and early 2000s. I recognized that the teaching and study style differed from my experience at the University of Edinburgh, so I had to make some adjustments and appreciate that different institutions have different approaches. I’ve also made some life-long friends from the course. There was a lot of opportunity to get out and be social, and Finns are more sociable than they’re often portrayed to be.
When it comes to career opportunities, where you live afterwards will have an impact, but your professional path does not need to be rigid and lead only into academia. At one point, I worked for the University of Helsinki as an International Student Advisor — a role that had no relation to my studies but was nevertheless exciting work. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up going back to either work for the university or try and do a PhD because my experience ultimately was very positive, and I liked working for the University of Helsinki.
When I finished my MA in Russian Studies and wrote my thesis, I went through full-time training to become an officer in the Royal Navy. Now, after experiencing the difficulty of being away from home for months, I’m again switching careers at 31. It’s an opportunity to find something new and establish myself here permanently in Finland, as it’s been my home for the last five-plus years and will likely be for the rest of my life. I plan to achieve citizenship in the next two years and work within a Finnish government or private organization that will allow me to apply my academic and professional experiences.
The Finnish professional market is more specific in many ways when it comes to career strategies. Prospective and current MAREEES students would benefit from reaching out to potential employers and see how they could tailor their studies or thesis to make them much more employable. In the UK, for example, studying at a good university opens a lot of doors, but in Finland often what matters more is what you specialise in. There is a slightly more traditional element here where your degree correlates directly to where you will work, though it is changing to where companies look at candidates from atypical faculty backgrounds.
The important thing though is that you don’t need to have a plan fully laid out — having direction is good, but keep an ear to the ground, speak with the faculty to broaden your network, and keep an open mind as to where you can apply your degree. Lean on the university’s career advice and support — it’s there for your benefit and to be used, but you also need to try and get into the networking circles in Finland. Career fairs and social events are good ways to get yourself out there. You can also try reaching out to course Alumni that are still working in Finland or are in the field you’re interested in.
The important thing is that you don’t need to have a plan fully laid out.
Learning Finnish will help — you don’t need to become fluent per se, but showing that you’re integrating is a big plus. On that note, lastly, even if a job advert is written in Finnish it won’t necessarily specify that fluent Finnish is a requirement, and a lot of work places here use English as their business language, so if you see a role that you’re an excellent fit for and it says fluent Finnish is required apply anyway as it may not be as mandatory as initially laid out.