The end

| Lisa Waldera

Lisa Waldera (25) is a master’s student Communication Studies from Bremen, Germany. For three years now, she’s been living on campus. Next to her study, she regularly visits the cinema and enjoys concerts of all music genres. Every other week she writes about her life at the University of Twente.

Photo by: Annabel Jeuring

As you might have guessed from the title, this is my last column. I will graduate during the summer and start new adventures. This also means that the pressure for this column is high. The cherry on the cake. What topic could be interesting enough for my last column? Better and more relevant than all the others before? All night I laid awake to come up with the perfect idea. In the morning, I needed a really strong coffee. But the inspiration had not come to me yet.

I sat down to think about how I usually came up with topics. Situations I witnessed on campus. The latest discussions within the UT community. Personal experiences during lectures and tutorials. I realized that it is mostly coincidental that I stumble upon a subject. And that is how I came up with this column. A column about me writing columns.

Because I found inspiration in everyday situations or social media posts, I noticed that I became more attentive and mindful. I started to read about the latest developments at the UT and self-reflected on my own study journey. I remembered my first time on campus at the Open Day. How I ate my first Broodje Kroket and was invited to make a short helicopter flight that day. Needless to say, I was sold and chose to study in Enschede.

Normally, I start with the ending. When writing a column at least. I come up with the message I want to bring across. A message that was not always appreciated by the entire UT community. While I faced some backlash, I was actually quite happy about it. I only have a few words to share my opinion, but the reality is way more complicated and nuanced than that. One column is never enough to exhaust a topic.

However, I feel like I contributed something by sharing my opinion every other week. I am grateful for that. It helped me to release some frustration, to use some creativity, to think extensively about certain topics and to form an opinion. But if you have read until here just to find out about my future plans, I will have to disappoint you. I cannot share any definite plans for after graduation, except that I will be working with people and in the field of communication. No surprise after psychology and communication studies. Updates are going to be shared on my LinkedIn. Thank you. The end.

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