Meet JYU alumni: Graham Burns
Graham Burns is a Project Manager at JAMK (The Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences). He completed his MA in Intercultural Communication at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ in 2017 where he previously obtained his BA in English with studies in Intercultural Communication and Business. He's also a local entrepreneur and an experienced English language educator.
A global man serving local communities
Like so many other great English stories, Graham Burns’s story began in Manchester in the 1960s. He obtained his basic education in the United Kingdom, but due to some negative experiences in high school, he lost his motivation for education and transitioned into a career in the military.
During his two and a half decades in the British army, Graham served many communities all around the world: he even spent some time in the former Yugoslavia where he met his wife. While deployed around the world, Graham gained an appreciation for the complexities men in uniform face trying to understand a local culture: this was a sort of first step in developing what he calls cultural acumen.
As he became more experienced, his responsibilities towards his colleagues increased as well: over the years, Graham took active steps in educating them when it comes to different cultural competencies as well as different technical skills. By the time he left the British army, his educational journey was still only beginning.
Who can be a good teacher?
Having discovered how much joy he got from teaching others, Graham Burns decided to give education another shot as he came back to the UK. While the voice of doubt, planted in his mind due to his bad experiences during basic education, still remained to a certain extent, he learned how to live with it and give himself another chance.
However, Graham did question how a person who was not a great student could become a teacher: fortunately for him, through the opportunity to take some college classes, he realized that he wasn't lacking in any educational sense and that he could go further.
Graham thus enrolled in a bachelor's degree programme in the UK and was well on track to become an educator. His plans changed a little bit when his wife got a job in Finland and they ended up moving to Jyväskylä in 2005. Despite not speaking the language and not being familiar with the community, Graham was determined to find that sliding door.
Success in Finland through good networks and the right timing
As soon as Graham Burns arrived in Central Finland, he reached out to The English Department at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ where he managed to get enrolled into a bachelor's programme. This made it possible for him to continue his educational journey, but he still had to find a way to make a living.
At this point many Finnish businesses were going through a period of international expansion, and there was a necessity for English language education. Thanks to his own extensive international experiences, Graham connected with a multitude of Finnish companies and offered them high-quality training.
By 2008, Graham amassed enough experience to become an entrepreneur, adding himself to Jyväskylä's network of successful business owners and leaders, and offered his services directly; all while managing to pursue his studies which says a lot about the flexibility of education at JYU, as well as how much can be gained by a mature person engaged in lifelong learning.
Flexible studies in Intercultural Communication programme
By the time Graham Burns handed in his bachelor's thesis, he was not only intimately familiar with the Finnish business world, but also very well prepared to continue his education. Thanks to his own interest in Intercultural Communication, as well as his desire to prove to himself that he is more than capable of succeeding in the world of academia, Graham enrolled in the master's degree programme in Intercultural Communication at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥.
There was only one slight problem: the programme was designed to be completed as a full-time programme, but his work responsibilities would not make that possible. Nonetheless, the people at the department expressed their willingness to be flexible and, in the spirit of lifelong learning, both sides made it work!
At this point Graham confessed that he found studying relatively easy which can be attributed to the fact that he had already developed the essential skills most students try to develop during their studies: self-discipline and time management. Having these essential skills gave him the chance to engage with the material in a deeper and more concrete way and focus on developing skills that he could directly apply in his professional life.
Education and life experience provide an important set of skills
According to Graham Burns, the purpose of education is to amass a transferable skill set and to understand the why behind things.
– At each step we learn something: while it might not seem relevant today, further down the line the relevance and the experience shall become clear.
With such a mentality and variety of life experiences, it is no surprise that Graham is, amongst other things today, a project manager at JAMK. Working in this role since 2018, he's been constantly involved in a multitude of projects all around the world which also puts him into contact with different governments as well as multinational organizations: exactly the type of environment his life story prepared him for!
The type of message he had for future students, as well as students who are approaching graduation, surely offer some deep insights and advice:
– Don't assume you can do everything immediately. You have a good education, but you're not necessarily an expert. Don't be afraid to make mistakes because it's part of life and learning. Cultivate your skills through your experiences. Also never be afraid to change your mind: if you go down one corridor, one career and decide it is not for you, find that sliding door and go through it with full force because you will succeed.
