Spending the night at the campus gym: ‘I’m glad I brought earplugs’

These are the kind of scenes you wouldn’t necessarily expect in a gym, but of course, this is not just any week. You see, due to Eureka Week, Erasmus University’s gym has been converted into a temporary dorm for several hundreds of first-year students. So how was their first night there? Did they manage to get any sleep, or were they prevented from falling asleep by noisy fellow students? Three students answered our questions.

Eva Vermeiren, 21, a first-year psychology student, did not have a particularly great night. “It was OK, I suppose. When I entered the gym on Monday, I thought, ‘oh, this is going to be horrible’, but in actual fact, you’re so worn out at the end of the day that you’ll fall asleep pretty much at once. Yesterday I met a lot of new people, and mostly, I drank a lot. In the evening I went to the party at the Maassilo with a group, and eventually, I ended up visiting a student society, S.S.R. We got here at around 3am. It was pretty noisy at that time, because many people were still up and talking to each other. Getting up this morning wasn’t too bad. Thankfully, I took a shower yesterday, because I was prepared for the fact that there aren’t an awful lot of showers here. I will sleep here for the rest of the week, as well, but it will be OK. Right now I mainly feel like sitting down and having a quiet cup of coffee.”

18-year-old Bram Louwerens is embarking on a degree in business administration in September. Unlike Eva, he slept just fine in the gym. “Only I had a bit of a short night, because I was kind of expecting we’d be allowed to get up a bit later. I thought the sleeping mat was quite comfortable. I often sleep on one at home, too. Yesterday was a very, very long day. I had to get up early to get from Venlo to Rotterdam , but I closed off the day in style at the Skihut. After the Skihut I thought it was time to leave. I was one of the first people to get back to the gym at night, so basically, there wasn’t a lot of noise to bother me. I wouldn’t have minded a few more hours’ sleep, but right now, I mostly just want breakfast.”

Anastasia Korsunsky, 23, a policy economics student, is queuing at Starbucks by 9am. “Last night was my first night at the gym, and I’m very tired, so coffee is a necessity. I actually passed the night better than I expected, I’m glad I brought earplugs. The sleeping mat I was on wasn’t terribly comfortable, but I was so tired I would have been able to fall asleep anywhere. Yesterday was a busy day, what with the opening ceremony (which was absolutely brilliant) and the walking tour of the city. In the end, it was not a very late night for me. We tried to enter a student society, but unfortunately, the queue was enormous, so that didn’t work out. Although I had a reasonably good night of sleep, I’m still extremely tired right now, but hopefully that will pass soon after some coffee.”