“RSC is the biggest and most traditional. If I go for something then I don’t go half-measures, I go for broke,” stated RSC/RVSV President Guido van Winden, who became a member in 2015. According to him, what makes the association, with no fewer than 1,700 members, distinct is the social commitment. “From the entrepreneur award to the arrival of St Nicholas, with which we make thousands of children happy. We add real value to the city with this. We have the ambition to achieve things, and that goes further than just drinking together.”
What else can students expect from RSC/RVSV? “We are fun and have that Rotterdam directness. We’re competitive, entrepreneurial and we’re one team. I won’t deny that we can sometimes be boastful. You sometimes need to be able and willing to see beyond that theatre. If you don’t want to do that, then maybe membership with us is not for you.” For now there is no lack of people who do want to be members. Last year, ninety people were not selected in a lottery and this year there will be ‘a few hundred’, because more school leavers have passed their exams and many people have skipped their gap year. “Students are also searching for social contact outside their Zoom lectures.”
Preconception
“En route to the initiation, my father must have asked me some seventeen times if I really wanted to go through with it,” explained former RSC President, entrepreneur and VVD Alderman, Vincent Karremans. “My cousin was a member, I was doing two studies and I was an ambitious young man. Being a member was a good match for this, and if I was going be a member, I wanted to do it properly. RSC is the oldest and the biggest; it is the club and I really wanted to belong to it.” His father’s preconception that they would all be arrogant brats was quickly rectified. “If you act cool, look down on people and derive your identity from the fact that your father is a banker or a member of the nobility, you’ll not be accepted. As son of an art teacher, I became President. If there’s someone who’s not from the nobility, then it’s me. It’s not about your origin. It’s really, totally not. One of the most prominent young men in my time came from Ghana.”
Another aspect of the association that he really appreciated is the tradition and history. “For example, RSC lost many members because they were in the resistance during the war. That’s why I sometimes place a rose on the grave of Frits Ruys in the cemetery in Crooswijk. He was a resistance fighter and former member.”
RSC has also taught him a lot. “Much more than the university. I discovered there that I wanted to become an entrepreneur, and I met my best friends there. That common background created a bond that runs very deep. My girlfriend was a member of Laurentius, where that bond isn’t the same. On open evenings we actually always went there, because that’s where all the pretty girls were. Those guys really weren’t keen on us coming to hit on their chicks.”
Laurentius alumnus Dennis Tak slept in an RSC house during Eurekaweek. “That was really great fun but, for me, it was a little too pretentious. I didn’t feel that much of a click there. It’s an association that attracts a certain stereotype. I don’t want to belong to something because of the name.”
On Tuesday, you’ll be able to read about Laurentius.
