{"id":80532,"date":"2017-09-21T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T10:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=80532"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:51","slug":"het-butterfly-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2017\/09\/21\/het-butterfly-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"The butterfly effect"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Your first day as a student is exciting, a bit intimidating, but above all loads of fun.\u00a0It\u2019s the start of a new phase in your life. Even though by now, I\u2019m on to my second master programme at EUR, I still vividly remember my first day as a bachelor student.\u00a0What stuck most with me was that acute sense of isolation \u2013 of being a single person in this vast mass of strangers. Even though you\u2019re all in the same boat, at moments like that, you feel like a solitary outsider.<\/p>\n

What I never could have expected back then, however, is the impact that day would have on my life today.\u00a0That first Monday of September, the Sanders Building was filled to the rafters with fresh-faced first-year students. I was starting on my Psychology bachelor, and they wanted you to choose a tutorial group and write your name on the accompanying list.<\/p>\n

After mulling it over, I ultimately decided to join \u2018Group 12\u2019, since it included the name of someone I knew \u2013 or at least, that\u2019s what I thought. She was a Turkish girl whom I knew from secondary school, and someone had told me she\u2019d also be studying at EUR. Which meant that I had managed to find a familiar face in the crowd after all.<\/p>\n

When I entered the room of my tutorial group, I saw straight away that it didn\u2019t include any Turkish girls. However, I did scope this handsome guy with a brown Afro!\u00a0We hit it off straight away. From the very first day, we would duck into the University Library every week to print out articles together. It was a great excuse to hang out a lot.<\/p>\n

And after countless interesting conversations, fun evenings, drinks at De Smitse and other adventures, we had become the best of mates. And at a certain point, we both started getting butterflies.<\/p>\n

By now, we\u2019ve been together for close to three years. He started his doctorate this year, and I am \u2013 as I mentioned earlier \u2013 working on my second master. I often think back to that first day. \u2018Group 12\u2019 is actually the only time we were ever in the same tutorial group.<\/p>\n

What would have happened if I had read the list more closely, and added my name to some other random group? Yup, small decisions can have major effects.<\/p>\n

Pooja Guptar (25) does a Master Media & Business<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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