Humans of TU Delft: Leon van Rossum

“To celebrate 30 years of the Erasmus+ Programme the organisation asked all the students who have gone on an Erasmus exchange in the last 30 years to write a story about their experiences. Of all the stories, mine was selected for the university category and I received the Erasmus+ Mobility Award.

I wrote about my experience during my bachelor’s Erasmus exchange at KTH in Stockholm. I was there half a year and it impacted me in many ways. I think my eyes were opened and I realised there’s so much else outside of aerospace. For example, I took courses in entrepreneurship, GPS, and Swedish society, and I learned Swedish. It really created a drive that led me to many other programs abroad. Since then I had the privilege to travel to Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Israel, the US, and the UK for different programs.

‘I love basically everything about The Netherlands’

I’m graduating in three months and I’ve been looking into jobs. I know that Holland is my country, I want to stay here in the long term, but living abroad is also a source of life for me. When I came back from Sweden, I wanted to go lots of places. But the more I was abroad, the more I learned I love my country.

A couple of years ago people would ask me where I wanted to work and I would say for sure not in Holland. Because the world is so big, there are so many things to discover, how can I just stay here? I’ve been and lived in many different countries in the last few years and then I realised this is my country. I love the political system, how everything is organised, I love the people and culture here, I love basically everything about The Netherlands. So I guess I really came full circle.”

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Heather Montague / Freelance writer