Students return to campus

For several months, campus Woudestein was a quiet or even deserted place. On the first day of Eureka Week, however, life has returned to campus. Over the course of the next four days, batches of students will visit the campus, three shifts per day.

Whieeeuuuuhwhiiieeuuuuh! ‘Please keep one and a half metres’ distance.’ Of course it’s great that students have returned to campus, but they do need to keep their distance from each other. Therefore, the Eureka Week organisers keep circling around the students, some carrying megaphones, to remind everyone to observe the physical distancing rules.

The coronavirus pandemic has not prevented students from many different places from travelling to Rotterdam. They have come from every part of the Netherlands, as well as from Germany, Turkey, Switzerland and many other countries.

Judging from the fact that he is wearing an RSM face mask, Japanese student Kozo has already found his way around the EUR campus. Like his fellow group members, he embarked on an MBA last January. ‘Unfortunate’ is the word he uses to describe the way his degree programme is turning out. All the things he was looking forward to were cancelled, such as a study trip that was supposed to take place next week. “And I actually made the decision to attend RSM precisely because its programme featured a study trip.” His fellow student Piyakul, who hails from Bangkok, was looking forward to exploring Rotterdam. “Instead I ended up holed up in my room, all alone.”

There is another whieeeuuuuhwhiiieeuuuuh. ‘Keep your distance, will you?’

Group 43 is sitting in the shade, looking a little lost. “We’ve just had an exhausting picnic”, says econometrics student Maurice jokingly. The word ‘unfortunate’ is used here, too, in reference to the induction week. Admittedly, it’s pretty chill, but perhaps it’s a tad boring as well. “I’d been looking forward to this for a long time, so this is a little disappointing”, says Maurice’s fellow student Nidi.

But soon they will be heading into town to play the game. The students are excited when they are told, because their group leaders had withheld that bit of information from them. “They were trying to build suspense”, says Shaan. Well, the tour of the city may no longer be a secret, but the first-year econometrics students can’t wait to start exploring Rotterdam.

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