The far-reaching lockdown announced by prime minster Mark Rutte on Monday was an unpleasant shock to Lara Hofstra. She was already well underway with setting up a wide variety of activities as part of the TU/e Winter University 2020.

Many of these activities were physical, and were supposed to take place mostly in the Student Sports Center during the holidays. The collaboration with Hubble was important too. The community café will prepare Christmas take-away meals on 25, 26 and 31 December, to be enjoyed together by students and staff members. Fortunately, that part of the TU/e Winter University 2020 remains intact.

For more information about other activities to take part in during the holiday season, go to the TU/e Winter University site or watch the video below. Happily, there’s much that can still take place, even though a significant number of activities will now be held online, for understandable reasons.

Read on under the video.

In the video, you’ll also hear about some of the issues our senior students and PhD candidates faced over the last months, but also about what they did to maintain in contact with one another. Difficult times, for sure, but with a vaccine on the horizon perhaps a bit less gloomy than without any perspective at all, as mentioned in the video.

Hofstra says that listening line Hear Me, which was launched in mid-April of this year with the help of many volunteers, will also be back on the air. The irrepressibly enthusiastic Hofstra says that twenty people volunteered already, in response to a post on Cursor’s Facebook page yesterday. “But even more would be great also, of course,” she says. More information about this initiative will be announced at the start of next week.