24/11/2022
TEACHER THURSDAY! 👩🏼🏫
Today we would like to introduce Jolien Arendsen to you.
‘’At the moment, I’m a teacher in the bachelor and pre-master program. And I also do research on a super specific and weird topic (terror management theory and consumer responses) in order to obtain my PhD at some point. And I’m also ‘chief information officer’, so I am present at open days and make sure we have nice flyers and such. Oh, and I have young kids (so I’m always exhausted). 😴
Twenty years ago I started as a student at the Communication Science bachelor program. We were the very first batch and started with just 12 students. (this mostly illustrates that I am pretty old by now and also that student numbers have grown a lot). I really liked the program and the teachers, although I have to say that there used to be a course ‘Media and Policy’ which I found incredibly boring and I had to (re)take the exam like 6 times to pass (with a 9.5, so it was kind of worth it 🥳).
Now I’ve been a teacher here for about 10 years. The best thing about being a teacher is 1) talking and joking with students and 2) that you never have to take an exam anymore (although creating and grading exams isn’t great either ;)). And I think we have a really great department with a lot of smart and funny (and handsome) (very important as well) colleagues (we clearly also have great students!), so I’m a happy camper.
And of course I want to leave you with something inspirational, but can only come up with: being a student is freaking great (apart from having to take exams, obviously!. So try to get the most out of it, because before you know it you have a job and mortgage (assuming the house market will crash and you can buy a house at some point ;)) and you never sleep because you have kids (true story). So, yeah: just enjoy the s**t out of it! (= official academic phrase)’’ 🤩
Swipe left to see Jolien’s cute family! ⬅️
