End-of-year special 2025

With 6,422 staff and 31,473 students, it’s impossible to know everyone at the university. But what do these people do once they step off campus? In this end-of-year series, EM makes the connection with six remarkable stories about what students and staff do in their spare time, and more.

War and peace, fact and fiction, good and evil. These are the kinds of oppositions that we humans use to understand the world around us. But the world itself is not so black and white at all, says Ronald van Raak in his Christmas column.

Krish Raghav – black-rimmed glasses, shirt, and a knitted fake watch – works as a communications officer at UNIC in his day job. In his spare time, he developed a game with a unique theme: the bizarre Amsterdam housing market.

When Mihai Tulbure wanted to move from Enschede to The Hague after finishing his bachelor’s, he discovered that moving companies charge extremely high prices – even for small moves. The Moldovan master’s student spotted a gap in the market and now, alongside his master’s in Business Information Management, moves up to ten students or expats a week.

Ellen van Schoten, vice-chair of the Executive Board, has been drawing for almost her entire life. From this month, her book De jongen die zijn stem verloor (‘ The boy who lost his voice’) is for sale in bookshops, featuring more than 130 of her drawings and a story, taking readers through Delft, Wales and England.

Jack knew his Syrian family only through phone calls during Eid al-Fitr and from the olive oil his grandfather occasionally sent. Now that he’s importing his grandfather’s olive oil and selling it in the Netherlands, he is discovering more and more about his Kurdish background.

For Erasmus MC lecturer Jos van der Geest, the Natural History Museum Rotterdam has become an important place in his life. Every Tuesday evening, a group of volunteers works here, creating an archive of bird and mammal history. For Van der Geest, these evenings were an anchor point during a difficult period.

For Psychology student Neris Kayahan, 2025 was the year she shared her music with the outside world for the first time. Her debut album explores a personal journey from unreciprocated affection to emotional growth. “Writing songs helps me understand what I’m feeling. It’s therapeutic.”

EM closes the year with six wonderful interviews with students and staff who, alongside their studies and work, have a special pursuit. For most of them it goes far beyond a fleeting hobby; they put their heart and soul into it.

From Fouad L.’s court case to a fire in Tinbergen, from protests to politics. A lot of things happened this year on and off campus. Some events full of love, others full of tension due to impending budget cuts. This is the EM TV newsflash year in review.

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