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CHAPTER 7

Engineering Student

THE 1970S HAVE BEEN CALLED THE BROWN DECADE. They began for me on 1 September 1969, when I enrolled at the University of Technology. I went to live in an apartment in a student block next to the university, which had been built to house athletes at the time of the Helsinki Olympics. It can’t have changed much since then. The dominant colors were brown and dark blue. During my first year I shared my bedroom with another first-year student. (In the tradition of student banter one could say he hasn’t got very far since: Matti Juhala is now professor of vehicle technology at Helsinki University of Technology.) We each had a narrow bed, a desk, a chair, and a wardrobe. There was a basin in the corner for us to brush our teeth and wash our hands, and a communal area with a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. In my second year I had a room to myself in the same block.

Helsinki University of Technology was an almost instinctive choice for me. There have always been lots of engineers in my family, and after me many an Ollila has studied to become a chartered engineer. For my major I chose applied physics, one of the more demanding and theoretical courses on offer. I liked the challenge and hoped the bar would be high enough. My fellow students were clever and had demonstrated as much in their exams. They came from all over Finland, though the Helsinki region was the most strongly represented since that’s where the best high schools were. I knew only a handful of the other students beforehand.

The university had moved to its campus in Otaniemi a few years earlier. It was the first American-style campus in Finland, with the whole area given over to university departments and student accommodation. Some of the services left something to be desired, such as the modest shop and post office, but Helsinki was close by.

Study was intensive. There were twenty-five to thirty hours of lectures a week. The rhythm of work I had got used to in Wales continued naturally. In my first two years I only remember studying physics and math. It required work, but Atlantic College had furnished a firm foundation. As well as study the autumn offered new leisure opportunities –social evenings on Tuesdays and dances at weekends. I was especially pleased that meals were provided. I’ve never been much of a cook, though I can boil potatoes and eggs. I’d been living on packet soups and sandwiches in my room, so a student canteen was a great advance.

The twelve trainee engineers who shared our apartment came from every year of the course. We made a good group and our communal life was very agreeable. Rather than barricade ourselves into our own rooms we spent our free time in the living area, making coffee and discussing current events. The two and a half years I spent in this group were one of the best things about university life. We’ve often gotten together since.

Engineering students sometimes talk these days of becoming “Otaniemified.” This is a particular way of becoming institutionalized, of rarely leaving Otaniemi. It never happened to me. I used to play tennis in downtown Helsinki. I didn’t often join in with the organized activities of the other students, though I led an active life. So active, in fact, that even tennis became a seasonal sport. This was the only time in my life I have taken breaks from this important pursuit.

I met my first Stalinists at Otaniemi. They held strong opinions. “The problem for the Social Democrats, the Centre Party, and the Conservatives is that they don’t have a society to model themselves on – a pattern for living that would work all over the world, better than Finland. We, on the other hand, have both the GDR and the Soviet Union,” they would say.

From today’s point of view it’s difficult to appreciate just how over-politicized the seventies were. Everything, and I mean everything, was political. I began my political career as a candidate in student elections, which in 1969 had been openly party-political for the first time. I chose to stand as a Conservative. Where I came from we had a two-party system, and everyone I knew voted either for the Conservatives or for the Centre Party. I imagined the Conservatives would be the choice of the thinking person whom socialism didn’t attract, in the way it didn’t attract me. It rapidly became clear to me that Conservative policy in these elections consisted entirely of opposition to socialism and had no other content. A positive alternative seemed to be lacking: the party’s policies seemed entirely negative, with no constructive element. This wasn’t enough for me. After the first year I moved to the Centre Party group, where there seemed to be people who could think.

Just as I grew impatient with politics so I began to tire of a wholly technical education. I had no cause for complaint with my studies, but differential equations alone didn’t open up the world as much as I wanted. I hankered after a broader education, with a greater focus on social issues. I had studied economics in Wales and I wanted to continue that study at the university level. I had friends in the political science department at Helsinki University, so I applied and was accepted there in 1971. This time I didn’t have to sit the entrance exams since to my surprise I was accepted on the basis of my results from Atlantic College.

The economics department was in central Helsinki. I enjoyed it immensely – the atmosphere was agreeable and the discussions and teaching provided a new angle of entry to social issues. The department had some smart people, and I received excellent guidance from them on what I should study. Study was not very sociable, however – I didn’t attend a single series of lectures, and just a few seminars. For the most part I had my nose in the books for the examined courses, making up for lost time as fast as I could.