Loving the world

It’s fascinating, the world. It started early with an atlas specifically designed for children. In it, there were maps with animals drawn on it, as well as images that showed the earth’s layers and how volcanoes works. I believe this is when my interests for maps came about. I love maps! The contrasts of the straight grids that human beings have drawn on top of something that’s everything but a grid.

In primary school, my favourite subject was ‘wereldoriëntatie’, freely translated to ‘orientation of the world’. It includes subjects such as geography, history, and life sciences. It aims to give children an idea of what the world is, and what it means and meant for people. I remember vividly the images of people around the world, living with different cultures in exotic places. It caught my interest. For a long time I have said I wanted to live abroad, and that’s why.

In secondary school, history and geography continued being my favourite subjects (apart from PE of course). Today, I wish it included life sciences too, but alas I dropped them after a few years. For me history class and home assignments were just the top of the iceberg. When doing my homework I could spend hours lost in Wikipedia articles threading my way across a topic. It was almost a disappointment that I had to leave for football training.

After secondary, I had to make a choice what I wanted to do with my life, decide what bachelor program to pursue. It hammer fell on journalism. Thinking back, it was a good decision. It was as broad as I could make it and cover the world. At that time writing wasn’t my piece of cake, however. I was mainly interested in the visual directions, like TV. Sadly, the grades in that half-year weren’t great. On the other hand, they weren’t beyond despair, it could’ve been fixed. Either way, I dropped out.

Then came a period were I was lacking the art of decision-making. So, my parents recommended me to do a bachelor in communications and multimedia design, and so I did. It was alright, but I never really saw a career for myself in that field. I wasn’t really interested, and I just got by as far as I did because it was fairly easy. Inevitably, I didn’t really manage to mix-in my interests¹ with the assignments. During COVID-19, feeling down and challenged by restrictions to do interviews and user-tests, I resigned my efforts and moved on. Just thirty points short of a professional bachelor.

My interest in the world, they continued to be. Working as a pool host, and particularly the bore that came with it, made me ambitious to give a final try on a bachelor’s degree. This time, I wanted to make my own choice again. It turned out, there is a bachelor’s programme cut out for me: international studies. A multidisciplinary programme covering political science, international law, history, and economics. An academic bachelor’s, and I finished it in the three years, with the respectable grade that is a C.

Oh boy! This programme combined all my interests and covered them. Understanding all these different aspects of international relations and how they cross-sections is something that I enjoy thoroughly. Now, after 31 years being on this gorgeous globe, I have accomplished a few things. I have finally managed to get a bachelor’s degree.

I want this success to continue. If only I could get an opportunity to work with sustainability, development, or human rights with an international aspect, I would be the happiest person in this world.