Waar gaat je collegegeld naar toe? - Univers

22. International
Dirty associations that
the act of drinking
coffee arouses
Column
A Cup of Joe
Coffee is not just one of many available drinks that make your day
more bearable. In fact, the whole student life revolves around it.
Have you ever noticed how the campus infrastructure is designed
to please coffee addicts and discriminate lovers of alternative
liquids?
The vending machines, providing urgent access to hot drinks in
every building first and foremost, give all kinds of coffee as options
to choose from. There is black coffee, cappuccino, wiener
mélange, espresso, cafe latte; all of them with options of regulating
strength and sweetness. And only at the very end, there it
is – a lonely looking tea offered in no variations other than the
disgusting one.
Coffee also defines our campus notion of time. The breaks between
lectures are not called ‘coffee breaks’ for no reason. But if
we name the break after the most urgent thing people do during
these brief few minutes, shouldn’t we called them pee breaks? Or,
to include both coffee drinkers and toilet goers, coppee breaks?
Drinking coffee is also part of an identity of a troubled student.
Dragging himself to a morning lecture, he carries a massive,
artsy-looking thermos, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and
dark circles under his eyes. But in a battle between coffee and a
glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, wouldn’t the latter be of
more use if you want to get your creative juices flowing?
On top of all that, student courtship behavior is entirely based
on coffee. A mini-date invitation is rarely for a cup of tea. For
some reason grabbing a cup of java with someone is just much
sexier and has more potential for a follow-up rendezvous. Maybe
it’s because of dirty associations that the act of drinking coffee
arouses – all the sugaring, creaming, swirling, spooning... A cup of
fair trade green tea just doesn’t stimulate imagination in the same
way. Well, perhaps except for a certain activity involving bags of
these fine leaves.
Univers
6 juni 2013
Sonia Kolasinska
Foreign lecturers about the Dutch
Bad papers
But to Max students need a different approach: “I would try to
encourage my students with positive feedback. Sometimes, it is
true, there are bad papers but you can see that a student made
an effort to get a grip on complex matters and got his butt down
to the library. At that point, your role as a lecturer changes into
that of a coach rather than a grader. But there are also students
who don’t make an effort. For example, in the past there were
students who would ask me to analyze an interview they’d done
and whether I could compile them a comprehensive literature
list for them to consult. At that point, I am not the coach anymore
but the lecturer who demands students to make an effort.”
Asking if this is typical for any nationality, Max is resolute: “Fundamentally,
I see a student as a critical mind, that is the purpose
of doing a master degree. It doesn’t matter where you’re from in
order to develop a critical mind, you just need to want it and do
it.” Max finds it hard to say if there is a real difference between
Dutch students and foreign students. He thinks that you shouldn’t
distinguish between Dutch and foreign students. “But the Dutch
government’s attitude towards students is harsh in respect to
punishing students who don’t complete their studies in time. I
think this goes at the expense of education. You become a product
of a society that says study a bit but graduate soon and earn
your own money. However, at times, you encounter people in
their MA who have never come across the word ‘enlightenment’.”
Really Dutch? I doubt it
“Identity is a performance in the sense of playing your ‘part’ in
the community that you are in. And it depends on the rules of
the community which act you then choose.” When asked what
he thinks of the Dutch identity, Max replies as an ethnographer:
“The Dutch identity, as any other national identity, doesn’t exist,”
and he adds with a grin – “even Maxima, your Queen said it. As
an ethnographer I can say for sure that a nation is an imagined
community. Dutch people, like any group, have their own rules,
norms, rituals and symbols such as Sinterklaas and Koninginnedag.
But that does not mean that they are a homo geneous
group. Is a Dutchman who does not celebrate Sinter klaas not a
Dutchman anymore?”
So, what is typically Dutch? “Well, anything and nothing. Giving
presents and unwrapping them immediately and while doing so
saying things like ‘Oh, wat mooi’. But those are just rules, rules
that are part of rituals and as in every community, rituals have to
be followed if one wants to belong. However nowadays, all this
has been taken to an extent that people are made to believe
that there is a canon, a core of values, that are typically Dutch
and that is why there is such a big emphasis on the other, on the
foreigner, who has to integrate. But this is more a sign of a crisis
on behalf of the Dutch who are faced with the fact that, after all,
they are but an imagined community”.