Joint action between business, sport and athletes will be more important in the future

About twice a year, Aalto organises a joint meeting for Urhea students, where a guest speaker is invited and students who combine sports and studies can meet each other. On Tuesday 23 April, Aalto visited Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, which, like Aalto, has an agreement with Urhea, the official top sports academy recognised by the Finnish Olympic Committee. Aalto University has been a partner of Urhea since 2015. Thus, for almost 10 years, Aalto has been committed to supporting the flexible combination of sport and studies and to taking into account the challenges and specific needs of a sports career, for example by helping students in scheduling and planning their studies. 

Atte Varsta, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Haaga-Helia, told the students about building a brand. According to Varsta, every person has their own brand. A brand is a story that others tell about another person to other people. 

‘In the eyes of others, a person is desirable, repulsive or meaningless. The person's own actions determine the outcome. If a person does not lead the creation of his or her own brand, power is transferred to others. However, the personal brand is the capital on which each person commercialises himself to the extent that he wishes to do so.’

Atte Varsta said that with a well thought-out and targeted personal brand, a top athlete packages his or her ambition and strategy into a story that is communicable, interesting and emotive. ‘For top athletes in particular, this is crucial for building a long-term career in sport. As the financial support for sport from society is in danger of diminishing, the future will see a greater emphasis on the joint efforts of business, sport and athletes. In this context, sport and athlete brands are a key catalyst for creating larger-than-life stories.’

After Atte Varsta's presentation, Timo Lampikoski, Career Counsellor and Relationship Manager at Haaga-Helia, held a practical LinkedIn workshop, where students could work on their own LinkedIn profile or, if they were not yet on LinkedIn, learn about the opportunities it offers. 

Peer support is important for student athletes

As always at the Urhea meetings, the event gave participants the opportunity to meet other student athletes, exchange experiences and feel a sense of belonging. The mutual exchange of experiences and feelings provides valuable support for the promotion of dual careers.

Chemical engineering student, freestyle kayaker Miika Sorjonen was one of the Aalto athletes attending the event. He is in his fourth year of studies, has completed his Bachelor's degree and this spring he has started his Master's degree. Miikka's best result in freestyle kayaking so far is the Finnish Championship bronze medal in 2023 and a 20th place at the World Championships in the same year.

‘Urhea has made it so much easier to study. When there are camps or competitions in the autumn and spring, Urhea has helped me to fit my studies in with my sport. For example, without Urhea's support, it would have been quite impossible to do a bachelor's degree, because in my sport the championships were in the autumn at the beginning of the semester,’ says Miika. ‘For me, the Urhea meetings have always left me with other athletes in my mind. They have the same problems as I do with balancing studies and sport. It's also really important that the Urhea contact persons are there to help us achieve a balance.’

Petra Häggqvist, a student of Bioinformatics Technology (BioIT) at Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, also attended the meeting. Petra's sport is sprinting, the distances are 100 m and 200 m, in the indoor championships 60 m and 200 m. ‘My best result so far is qualifying to finals in Kalevan kisat and 8th place (100 m), and 4th place in the indoor Finnish Championships (60 m). At the Youth Finnish Championships I have won silver and bronze medals in the indoor competitions.’ 

Petra says that she practices in Urhea Hall and its great facilities about once a week with her own club, Helsingin Kisa-Veikot. She has received help from Aalto's Urhea coordinator in designing courses and building 'a study puzzle' to better fit the life of a competitive athlete. Petra also says that she occasionally takes advantage of the free UniSport membership card for athletes to do self-paced workouts in Otaniemi.

‘I hope that the cooperation between Urhea and Aalto will be further developed to become more functional and holistic, as combining sport and university studies as a BioIT student sometimes requires a lot of balancing and planning, as well as the courage to follow a different path than fellow students.’

‘It was interesting to hear and see how the combination of sport and studies is implemented at Haaga-Helia. I felt that the atmosphere was very positive and that the combination of study and sport is even more developed than in Aalto. It is therefore good that joint meetings are organised and that we can possibly learn from each other and share best practices. Atte's presentation on sports management was interesting and I took away a lot of ideas from it.’ 

Sami Itani, Professor of Practice at the School of Business' Department of Management Studies, who is responsible for Aalto's Urhea, agrees with Petra. ‘The Urhea cooperation is really important for students following Aalto's top sporting path, but it is equally valuable for our athletes to see and hear how athletes from other universities manage to combine studies and sport. Thank you to the representatives of Haaga-Helia for inviting us to a joint event in Pasila.’

Text: Terhi Ollikainen
Photos: Miika and Petra's albums