Antti Pikkanen came to study Finnish literature at the University of Helsinki immediately after upper secondary school in 2010. He has always enjoyed writing. He studied for his matriculation exam by analysing literature, and that was very close to what the Finnish literature entrance exam called for.

Alongside studying, his working life got busy very quickly in his first year, when he went to work at the City paper and then later began to take other journalism work.

‘If I was on schedule, I would already have a Master’s degree, but I don’t even have a Bachelor’s,’ Pikkanen laughs.

The motivation to study was never lost.

‘But the motivation to finish my studies was. Because work has always been available. And I don’t know if I need a Master’s degree in my career. Work experience is more important.’

After two years of work at the Ylkäri student newspaper, however, he set his sights on completing his degree.

In addition to Finnish literature, Pikkanen has studied gender studies, the Finnish language, management and communications.

‘This is how I think humanities students should do it. There are so many trivial things to pick on, but that’s what makes humanists such good professionals. Studying the humanities emphasized academic freedom as an ideal in its purest form.’

Pikkanen sees that studying humanities provides good resources for a journalist’s work. He has learned many tricks of the trade through working, such as how to construct the story.

With literature studies Pikkanen has struggled, but last fall he got interested in gender studies.

The discussions between the many participants from different faculties were emotional.

‘I thought “Great, this is something very different than what I’ve done before”.’

Pikkanen is especially fascinated by the intersectional approach to research. For example, discrimination must be viewed from a number of different factors, such as gender, ethnic backgrounds and social inequality.