Nienke, Medicine

About Nienke
As a child I always wanted to become a doctor and pretended that my teddy bears were my patients. I knew from an early age what I wanted to study: medicine. This made it easy for me to choose a study.

In my third year of high school I chose the Nature & Health profile with physics and Latin. My teachers did not support this choice, since I did not get good grades on subjects like physics and chemistry, so I went against the advice of my mentor, dean and teachers. It turned out that these people were right, because I barely passed every year and ended up failing my final year of high school. When I look back at my high school years, I am happy that I made my own choice and I do not mind failing my final year, because without the profile that I chose I would not have been able to study medicine.

Because I already knew what study I wanted to do, I only had to think about where I wanted to study medicine and what study I liked as an alternative. Medicine is a study with a decentralized selection, so I had to have a plan B. In my fourth year of high school I already visited some open days, and after my fifth and sixth year of high school I had been in almost every city where you could study medicine. Finally, I chose Groningen because I felt most at home in Groningen and I preferred the program of medicine in Groningen compared to other universities.

The study medicine has the same name everywhere, but every university has a different program for the study, which makes comparing universities very important since you have to chose the program that suits you best. The first year of medicine I mainly focused on my studies, because it was already a big step to live on my own and start a new study. I was afraid I didn't have time for fun things, so I didn't want to commit to anything. It turned out that I had enough spare time in my first year for some jobs, and in my second year I also joined a rowing association and a committee from my study association. Your study is important, but making time for fun things is just as important, so I'm glad that I made these choices later on.

I hope you can also make a good study choice! If you have any questions for me, please send me a message so I can hopefully help you with your choice.

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