Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
About us University College Groningen
Header image UCG Blog

UCG Blog

Back in Groningen: Round 2 – Adventure ft. Academia

Date:21 September 2018
Back in Groningen
Back in Groningen

Three weeks have now passed since I have left the outskirts of the Kalahari Desert to return to my other, more tame residence: the Netherlands. After having spent a large part of my summer 10 000 kilometres away under the hot sun in Botswana (Southern Africa) Groningen felt like a different planet. Not only did I have to get used to wearing shoes again, I also had to re-embrace riding a bike instead of cruising dirt roads in a 30 year old jeep. Now I am ready to dive back into urban life.

Being back at UCG really had me realise how much this place has become my home and how much I had missed all my friends over the summer. Next to that, it got me all excited about all the memories we were yet to make in the remaining two years. Only that from now on, these memories will go beyond beerpong tournaments and 80’s party’s in the Frascati Kitchens (The first year student housing). This year, I finally have my own apartment together with a friend. Fortunately, we live right at what I call the ‘Central Park of Groningen’: Norderplatsooen. What I enjoy most about that is cycling through the park every morning on my way to UCG. What are the perks of moving out of student housing you may ask? Getting 8 hours of sleep at night and leaving the house to be social – things that didn’t even cross my imagination last year. The disadvantages ? Your friends are now more than just an elevator ride away from you and toilet cleaning duty is now all on you!

Apart from the housing situation, there are also many other things that change for us second years. We all have more of a clue about the journey that academia is taking us onto: Most of us know the majors we are doing after exploring and experimenting around in the first year. Finally, I don’t have to give my relatives hour long presentations on that miraculous concept of liberal Arts and Sciences, but I can tell them with certainty what I am doing. Moreover, I really enjoy attending lectures at other faculties which also gives you the chance to get to know other people and get an insight of what uni is like at the RUG: 200 people in a huge lecture hall and there is no constant check of whether you are doing your work, in the end you either fail or you don’t – everything is up to you. To avoid the embarrassment, I have now at least abandoned one of the common traits of the UCG culture which is to consistently be late. After having studied at UCG for a year, you really take for granted that you call your professor by their first names and are likely to even clinked a glass of wine with them at UCG’s events.

From Cell biology to Geography and then all the way to Philosophy, I ended up committing to a social Sciences major. I know for a fact now that my brain isn’t science wired. UCG has taught me that things are way more interconnected then they seem. Eventually, subjects like Sociology will boil down to Cell Biology. However, I won’t be doing any specialisation within my major. In fact, I am focusing on taking courses that are relevant for the masters degree I am wanting to pursue: Global Development Studies. This will hopefully pave the pathway to a career in a NGO’s that organise community development programs, which I am very passionate about. Currently I am taking a course called political economy, in which we examine voting behaviour and discuss different theories of government intervention. The other course is a course at the sociology faculty and is called Social and Institutional change, the essence of that course is to look at how social institutions affect social cooperation and organisation.

As you might see, this year is promising, but don’t worry, I will take you along to all my adventures. See you soon!

Eva