In the spring of 1969 I was a very different sort of boy from the one who had left for Atlantic College nearly two years before. I had certainly grown a little taller. I was gangly, long-haired, and fully familiar with the latest pop music from Britain and the States. In the spirit of the age I wore trendy jeans, and my English was fluent, though apart from Finnish and English I didn’t really know any other languages. I was still working to fill this gap when I was at Nokia. But the most important thing was that I had grown in self-confidence and self-esteem. I had gone abroad for two years on my first foreign trip. I had survived, indeed flourished, though from time to time I had missed Finland and my family.
Now however I was back home where I spent the summer helping with the hay on my uncle’s farm. At the end of the sixties the region was prosperous and lively, although the farm was small and old-fashioned and relatives were the main source of power. Just a little while back at Atlantic College I’d been working with pen and slide-rule; now I was holding a pitchfork or a scythe. That summer was the last extended period I would spend in Ostrobothnia, though I didn’t know that as I slogged away in the fields. I felt neither sad nor nostalgic; rather I had a sense of excitement and expectation. When Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11 were approaching the moon, and Armstrong took the first steps on its surface, his progress was continuously monitored from my uncle’s traditional little farm.
Atlantic College had made me independent of my parents and cut me free from the place where I grew up. My world was open. My parents were no longer much in my thoughts and I certainly didn’t listen to them as I had when I was younger. The self-sufficient child had grown into an independent young man in a single bound. It had been stressful; but it had also been necessary.
While many of my generation interested themselves in Soviet collective farms, the Communist Party, and Five-Year Plans, I had moved west to join the wider European and global conversation. At a key phase of intellectual development, my world view had diverged from many of my contemporaries. I had studied and also seen how the world worked, how capitalism worked. At the same time that many of my friends had cleansed their minds of independent thinking in favor of party propaganda, I had painfully learned to think for myself, to put together my own viewpoints, and to defend them against intelligent criticism. This experience built up my self-esteem, but it also made me an outsider in Finland, where activists in political parties seemed to be gaining the upper hand and taking ever-moreimportant positions at an ever-younger age.
Leftism – the adoration of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic – had assumed the nature of a group psychosis in Finland. The movement reached its peak in 1970, when universities ground to a halt as students boycotted lectures to go on strike alongside the workers. The student organizations had become party political machines issuing statements on the situation in the Middle East, poverty in Africa, or the dangers Western imperialism posed to the cosmos.
I didn’t have a dream profession, but I had a hunch I’d find a niche in academia – I thought I might perhaps be a good professor of physics at a university or polytechnic. I thought, too, that I might continue my civic activities, which I had begun in the inspiring environment of Atlantic College. As a nineteen-year-old I found myself analyzing the Finnish government’s economic policies, using the broad experience I had gained from Atlantic College’s economics courses and from reading The Economist every week. Perhaps a professor of physics could benefit from these activities to some extent? And weren’t physics and economics all about calculation and mathematics, which just got easier and easier for me? That was my train of thought as I made hay on holiday that summer.
In August the post brought the sort of letter Finnish families long for: I had been accepted to read applied physics at Helsinki University of Technology. I went with my father to the bank in Vaasa, where I’d had an account since childhood, to apply for a student loan. This was before the state automatically guaranteed such loans. So there we were in our suits and carefully ironed shirts. My father guaranteed the loan, and the following day I received the soothing news that the loan had been approved – my university years could begin.
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