Two weeks ago, EUR students shared their thoughts on HBO students stealing ‘their’ study areas in the university library and the Polak Building. While the HR guests are recognised (‘by their ‘frikandel’ buns and Red Bull’), they don’t cause much of a nuisance, according to the EUR students we polled. Nevertheless, Facebook pages like EUR Confessions are having a field day.
Big, bad world
“What you often see is that while they’re incredibly smart and very independent, they absolutely hate having to do a presentation.”
“I think it’s quite condescending,” responds Joshi, a first-year accountancy student at HR. He’s familiar with the page in question. “I don’t go to EUR. I don’t feel very welcome there.” Ghitha understands why EUR students find it “annoying” when HBO students use the study areas. “But we simply don’t have any room here.” Although the second-year student does find it strange that someone enrolled in a research university would refer to HBO students as ‘f*cking course participants’. “You can find people like that, yelling stuff like that, everywhere. But in that case, I think you should take a good hard look at yourself and determine whether you’re actually ready for the big, bad world outside.”
And in certain situations, many of the neighbours at EUR aren’t, according to Financial Service Management student Annelies: “What you often see is that while they’re incredibly smart and very independent, they absolutely hate having to do a presentation. Many of our students love those opportunities. And a lot of students at Uni aren’t very commercially minded. They are less bent on proving themselves, they have more self-confidence.”
Bluster
Indeed, a number of the HBO interviewees mention their neighbours’ self-sufficiency. Accountancy student Anil: “They attend a few lectures two days in the week, but for the most part, they hack it on their own. I wouldn’t like that: here, they offer you more support, and you jointly discuss things.” International Business Languages student Shangita’s impression is that students at EUR not only work more on their own, but that they can also afford to miss a lecture every now and then. “Here, this is absolutely out of the question, and indeed impossible. At HR, I get the feeling that you definitely need to know some of the things lecturers tell you in class for the exam.”
“When you write the article, could you pop in my mobile?”
And this independence is also reflected in how EUR students interact. “You see them sitting by themselves more often,” says Karima. “We’re more open, and we socialise more here – including in groups,” adds fellow student Muhubol. It’s true, confirms Daniel, who read Law at EUR last year and is presently enrolled in the International Business & Management Studies (IBMS) programme at HR. “At the university of applied sciences, you have more of a team spirit, because you do more things as a class. At EUR, we had a different group every week,” he notes. According to Daniel, the typical academic student can be found hanging around a student association society building: “they go to Laurentius and RSC – there’s quite a bit of bluster.”
Litres of Red Bull
In Muhubol’s experience, academic students ‘look kind of intelligent’. “Maybe because they tend to be calmer than HBO students.” A number of other HR students reach the same conclusion. Annelies: “Some HBO students are very restless, rowdy and they have a big mouth. As if they’ve had litres of Red Bull.” Viren smiles when he hears the Red Bull reference. He also saw the video clip in our first instalment. “Hahaha, well, they drink quite a few Red Bulls themselves. I don’t see much of a difference personally.”
And nor does Samuel: “When we get off the bus here at Kralingse Zoom, I have no idea who’s going to which institution,” says the first-year Accountancy student, who occasionally overhears EUR students having an ‘intellectual’ conversation in the Spar supermarket on campus. “But of course, they could also be senior-year students.”
“They drink quite a few Red Bulls themselves. I don’t see much of a difference personally.”
Nor does everyone subscribe to the view, expressed in the first part of this series, that HBO students are hogging all the study areas on campus. Accountancy student Chris occasionally goes in search of a study area – often to no avail. “When you arrive there around 10, you already see laptops all over the place – but no students from Uni – OK, maybe HBO too – in sight. And they only come back at say, 4 p.m. That’s a far bigger problem than us allegedly stealing study areas.”
High-class girls
“The girls seem really high class and are a bit stuck-up; the guys need to meet a high standard.”
Do those intellectual conversations sound ‘aloof’? IBMS student Sanne: “A friend of mine goes to Uni. OK, he does sound a bit uppity now and then, but I couldn’t care less – I know him from before we started our studies.” A lot of the HR students turn out to have friends enrolled at EUR. “They haven’t changed,” is Chris’s experience. “They’re still great.”
And the ‘really pretty girls’ that can be found at EUR are great too, according to Accountancy students Ertugrul and Marin. Marin: “The girls seem really high class and are a bit stuck-up; the guys need to meet a high standard. That can come off a bit arrogant.” And “with looks like that” he doesn’t blame them, Ertugrul says with a smile. “When you write the article, could you pop in my mobile number?”
