- People , The University
- 25/09/2020
MomenTUm live in your living room
In living rooms, gardens and the graduate cafe, hundreds of graduates celebrated their diploma today. The actual certificate will only be received later, but the party is there nevertheless. Cursor was a guest at the house of graduate of Industrial Engineering Dion Verschuren.
A quiet living room in Den Bosch, with a view of "Den Bosch Beach", a euphemism for a mountain of sand and pools of water from a part of the neighborhood that is still under construction. He hasn't lived there very long himself either. The move has everything to do with his master Data Science & Entrepreneurship at JADS. His graduation is for the bachelor Industrial Engineering. “It took me a little longer because I did quite a few things besides my studies. I was a member of E.S.C and founded my own fraternity there with a few guests. Did some boards, etc. But you learn something from those things as well, so I don't mind.” Do you really feel like a graduate now, without a physical ceremony? “I don't feel very much like that now no, but I think that will come with the ceremony next year. And it also feels different because I am already studying again.”
In a gown and with an academic cap in the living room
Dion beautifully put the livestream on the TV accompanied by a classic bowl of nuts on the coffee table. Whether there are more people watching at home that he knows of? “I know some people who also graduated, both from my fraternity and from my program. But I don't know if they are all watching? ” He sends a message into the group chat. Ping, ping, responses are coming in. “No one else is watching. Well, maybe they didn't really get the note? I can't remember an email about it or anything, but I have seen it on Facebook and Insta.
Halfway through the broadcast, a pop-up appears: you can win a graduate hoodie if you send a photo that you are watching. The photo Cursor took of him goes into the DM. Fingers crossed. MomenTUm is appreciated. “I like that they even do something at all,” Dion says. “Make the most of it. You can also decide to not do anything. And yes, it can always be crazier and more creative. The school next door (Koning Willem I, ed.) is doing a kind of drive thru graduation ceremony. That is very cool, but the TU/e is much bigger, it just isn't possible there.”
After the official ceremony, the MomenTUm after party starts. The music is a bit calm to really get a party started in the living room, but at that moment two friends ring the doorbell to celebrate graduation. Zoey and Sequoyah even brought a real graduation outfit that Dion has to wear immediately. Zoey got it when she graduated. Dion, wearing the classic combo, takes a tasty pizza from the oven and pours some beers.
Just missed MomenTUm 2019
Dion ‘got’ his bachelor's degree quite a few months ago. “Unfortunately just too late for the physical MomenTUm of 2019. I still had to pass two courses of my bachelor's degree. Unfortunately I did not pass during the first and second attempts. I needed a third chance, but I didn't get it from the exam committee. Then I appealed. That was then took the entire summer (of 2019, ed.). My appeal was only accepted at the end of the summer and I was allowed to make a third attempt. I did that in September and then I passed both subjects.”
They were two notorious obstacles in Industrial Engineering: Quality and Reliability Management and Stochastic Operations Management. So if that appeal had gone faster, Dion could have just been at MomenTUm 2019. “The aftermath was unfortunate as I wanted to start my master's degree in Den Bosch in September 2019, but that was not possible. They are very strict here: your bachelor must be finished before September of that year. So I had to wait a year, because you can't start a month or a quartile later here, like you can in Eindhoven. Then I worked for a year at a real estate consultancy agency and gained experience. I still work there part-time besides my studies. That experience is also worth something, then I will graduate with a few years of work experience. And I learned things that are useful in my master now, so in the end I don't mind it really. It just had to be this way."
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