{"id":89167,"date":"2018-08-24T13:28:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T11:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=89167"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:23:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:23:04","slug":"tracking-group-228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/08\/24\/tracking-group-228\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking group 228: How the first-years socially evolved in four days time"},"content":{"rendered":"

One could ridicule the incoming freshmen for having skipped most of the scheduled programming on Wednesday, but the reality is they learned a valuable lesson that will help them get through university life: how to recover from a night of drunken debauchery. Plus, all that lounging after the cantus just meant the first-years were up and running again for Thursday\u2019s events.<\/p>\n

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Bart and Nathalie at the Escape The Skyline Festival.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnna Mazur<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

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A cloudy Kralingse Bos was the setting for the Escape The Skyline Festival, a daytime party dedicated to the first-years. There, some of the members of group 228 could be found sitting in the grass mingling with other groups as DJs blared house music through the loudspeakers. Besides the DJs, the festival also had a giant inflatable game of Twister and a mechanical credit card\u2026the equivalent of a mechanical bull, except it\u2019s sponsored by Rabobank. Valentin Marchon, who is apparently one of the tallest people on campus according to reporting Ferayed Hok<\/a>, took a rocky ride on the mechanical credit card.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can\u2019t feel my arms anymore,\u201d Marchon admitted.<\/p>\n

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Valentin Marchon rides a mechanical credit card…<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnna Mazur<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

From awkward to easy<\/h2>

Watching the group of IBA first-years as they bob their heads to the music and chat comfortably amongst themselves, it\u2019s hard not to notice how much they\u2019ve evolved socially over the past four days. Awkwardness was, at times, very palpable on the first day. By Day 4, there wasn\u2019t a hint of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning it was a bit difficult because it\u2019s an entirely new situation with new people, but after just a couple hours all the talking came naturally,\u201d said Sabine Grond. \u201cI think the guides helped with that. They didn\u2019t feel like guides. They felt more like friends and they have treated us like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow first-year Malin Holm shared similar sentiments towards the guides.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think without Mo and M\u00e1t\u00e9, the whole thing wouldn\u2019t have been nearly as good,\u201d Holm reflected. \u201cThey didn\u2019t necessarily follow the program all the way through and I liked that. As a group, we just did what we felt like doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Late night reflections<\/h2>

After giving the Night of Songs a pass, the group head over to a house party for one final hoorah together. With a drink in hand and a wonderful view of Blaak, guides Morad Farag and M\u00e1t\u00ea Pocs take a look back on the week that was.<\/p>\n

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Guides Morad Farag and M\u00e1t\u00e9 Pocs met at Eurekaweek last year.<\/span><\/p>

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\u201cEurekaweek was incredible,\u201dsaid Farag. \u201cIf you look at it, it really all started last year when I met M\u00e1te at Eurekaweek. We had good guides, and that made us want to become guides. Then the week started and suddenly we\u2019re around all these cool kids. I just hope we showed them as good a time as we had last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guides last year let our group choose what to do each day and we did the same for our group this year,\u201d added Pocs. \u201cI think it just works for everyone, it keeps the atmosphere relaxed. And I\u2019m sure that, just like us last year, two or three of the people in our group will become guides next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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