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At upper secondary school, Janne Sarja was interested in social issues, and after that he applied to study economics at JYU. During his military service, he spent all his spare time cramming for admission tests. It was worth it, though, and he eventually got the thick envelope he had been hoping for from JYU. After his military service, he had a study place waiting in Jyväskylä, still then a totally strange city to him.

The start of his studies was delayed by a month because he was not released from the army until October. On the day he moved to Jyväskylä, the JSBE students’ subject association Pörssi happened to be having a party, where Janne headed right away, without even going first to his new flat.

“At the party, I made friends with a couple of guys and we eventually headed to an afterparty together. It wasn’t until the following morning that I went to see my new flat. We are still really good friends and regularly in touch, which is great.”

In his student years, Janne was not active in the subject association, preferring to hang around in smaller groups. Janne still fondly remembers the long lunches in Agora and other student restaurants. “I miss those in-depth discussions,” Janne says.

“I was once on a Lake Päijänne cruise and did not even notice when the ship set out, as I was so deep in conversation with my friends. When I started to ask when we might be setting out, we had already travelled a long way on the lake.”

Janne’s study years also included a practice period at the Finnish Embassy in Geneva. During the three-month practice period, Janne’s boss noticed his literary skills. “It was the first time somebody said I write well,” Janne remembers.

After returning to Finland, Janne started to write economy-related articles, some of which were published in the newspaper Keskisuomalainen. He also started to study journalism as his minor. A career as a financial reporter began to seem like a good career option.

“A great thing about university is that you can study different subjects without pressure. I was not narrowly focused by any means but interested in many things. Economics is one of the best lines of study if you are broadly interested in social issues. It provides good qualifications for many kinds of jobs.”

During his master’s studies, Janne got a communications job in a local IT firm. “I worked during the day and then from 5 to 7 p.m. I was in the library working on my master’s thesis,” says Janne about the final stage of his studies. “I was working on it on daily because I wanted to get it done.”

When Janne got an opportunity to move within the firm to work in Helsinki, he left Jyväskylä behind. He established his own company, through which he could work on social media communications for the Docventures TV programme.

“Through this work I got acquainted with people in TV and noticed that TV and comedy are what I like to do. I then googled training in this field and found a three-month course in Chicago. I invested all my savings in it. I found out, however, that it was nothing to write home about.”

In Finland, TV production circles are small and the message about a new young scriptwriter spread quickly through the grapevine. The programme Pitääkö olla huolissaan? was looking for a new member for its writing team, and Janne was offered the job. One job led to another, and many entertainment manuscripts are Janne’s creations.

“After hanging around with the authors on the panel of Pitääkö olla huolissaan?, I got the feeling that I wanted to belong to the same bunch. When writing a script, there is always extra material that dones’t make it on to the show, so I started to turn these leftovers into a book. Läpimurtoteos was published in 2020, and my first novel is due out this autumn.”

Skills in organising knowledge and handling large sets of data have been a great advantage in Janne’s career. His university studies also gave him confidence in own thinking as well as the skill to look at things critically and from many different angles. “I try not to be too black-and-white in my thinking. I want to at least try to be aware of the existence of various shades of grey.

“It feels great that when I’m asked about my education, I can check the master’s degree box. I’m proud of it.”