During my time as a student, I was active in the Student Union, and served for three years as its secre-tary general. This is why it’s important to me to maintain contact with the University and the younger generations even now. During the early stages of the Alumni Association, I was a member of its board. At that time, the operations were very small-scale, but fortunately, the association has since grown to a substantial size.I have decades of experience in communications.
I have gotten to know students through alumni evenings organised by KTTO, the association for students of econom-cs at the University of Helsinki. This has been an important recruitment channel for me. Together with my wife, we have travelled around Europe on alumni trips. Nothing can beat sailing up the Danube in a riverboat, while listening to lectures on the Habsburg era by Laura Kolbe. Trips organised for alumni are more refined than regular Finnish package tours, as the fellow travellers comprise a select group, including social scientists, physicians and judges, not heavy drinkers.
Matti Saarinen
Faculty of Social Sciences