The Alumni Corner

“The university must be at the core of society”

Author Anja Snellman thinks the university has an impact on society through basic research and dedicated, long-term work.

Ideally, academic education gives an ability to approach issues analytically and critically and to participate in visionary debate. This is the view of novelist Anja Snellman, who has published 19 books. She looks at academia through her role as a university alumna and a mother of two nearly grown-up daughters, who are both applying to the University of Helsinki this year.

“The way the university affects society is slow, the results aren’t evident until many, many years later,” she says.  “Intellectualism and painstaking long-term projects aren’t perhaps that fashionable these days, but it is important that the university stands guard over these values.”

Snellman first came into contact with the university when she was 13 years old, when she according to her own words dragged her friend to the Great Hall of the university to listen to a poetry reading by Pentti Saarikoski, the legendary Finnish poet. Snellman thinks that the university is quite unique as an environment and that parents should introduce their children to the academic atmosphere early on, just like they are taken to museums or science centres and amusement parks.

Anja Snellman (former Kauranen), who published her first novel, Sonja O was here,  when she was still at the university, has studied the humanities extensively. She feels academic education has given her a solid foundation for her career as a writer.

“I can use sources critically and I am not afraid of going inside the university and seeing how the departments work, whether we are talking about genetics, biochemistry or drug development. The knowledge of foreign languages allows me to access various primary sources. But the most important gift is a strong general knowledge.”

Snellman regrets that currently, in this anti-intellectual age , academic discourse is mastered by quite few.

“For example, at the Parliament and in legislation work, a solid academic background should be more in evidence. University-educated people should feel that they are part of the university institution for the rest of their lives. Their education should show in their thinking, they should feel it in their bones.”

An active alumna herself, Snellman would like people to see what a great, exciting and socially rewarding place the university is, where among other things, people often make friends for life. She is not sure whether all school-leavers are really aware of that, what with the vast amount of competing offerings at their disposal.

Anja Senllman was interviewed by Elina Mattila-Niemi