{"id":82479,"date":"2018-01-08T09:30:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T08:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=82479"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:54","slug":"als-een-ijsbeer-op-de-zuidpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/01\/08\/als-een-ijsbeer-op-de-zuidpool\/","title":{"rendered":"Like a polar bear in the Antarctic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIs that what you\u2019re wearing to lectures \u2013 are you out of your mind?\u201d It\u2019s the first week of my academic career and I\u2019ve pulled on my usual outfit for secondary school: a jersey of my favourite NBA team and a pair of three-quarter pants. I basically see University as a kind of secondary school 2.0 \u2013 so I hadn\u2019t for a moment considered a change of attire.<\/p>\n

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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\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

But my former classmate, whom I\u2019ve run into at Kralingse Zoom, clearly takes a different view. He probably only pulled the price tags off his new jacket this morning. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018not done\u2019, you know,\u201d he says, after he\u2019s finished laughing. \u201cYou have to think of your image.\u201d One hour and at least twenty surprised looks later, I\u2019m starting to understand his point.<\/p>\n\t

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EM is 20 years old and during the Christmas period, all kinds of articles that look back on twenty years of Erasmus Magazine will appear under the name 20 Years of EM<\/em>. In the section When I was 20<\/em> the editors of EM look back on their study time, currently one, two or more decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

In hindsight, this mismatch between my sartorial choices and those of my fellow students symbolises my entire time at EUR: in a world where it\u2019s all about networking to land a position on some committee board, sprucing up your resume for that coveted internship in New York and wowing everyone who crosses your path at student association parties, I felt like a polar bear who had ended up in the Antarctic.<\/p>\n

Of course, there were enough fellow students who had come to EUR with the same goal I had: to have fun. Except in many cases, this fun was had behind closed doors \u2013 in student associations and houses for which I unfortunately lacked the required cred, hipness and\/or cool.<\/p>\n

Writing this column, I find myself peering ten years into the past. What if I had bought that new jacket; what if I had bragged a bit more? But I suspect that in the end, it wouldn\u2019t have made a difference. I simply lacked the constant drive to buff up my \u2018image\u2019 \u2013 something that presumably enables a sizeable share of our population to hold their own. I remained that polar bear on the South Pole \u2013 regardless of whether basketball jerseys are in or out of style.<\/p>\n

Jasper Monster (1990)<\/p>\n\n\t

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