Bas Rooijakkers often hears people say that TU Delft students are arrogant. If you do a challenging degree, you need to be special. Don’t you? Bas is trying to break this one-sided reputation.
Studying at TU Delft not only entails lectures, theses writing, and laboratory experiments, it also means having to deal with a particular reputation in the minds of others. An image that hangs over you like a dark cloud. It is sometimes an intellectual accolade, sometimes an invalid assumption of being ‘autistic’, and sometimes a random association with bicycle repairers. I have to deal with it at almost every birthday party I go to. I have to go through the now familiar course of conversation when I say that I study Applied Physics at TU Delft. Time and time again I get the same predictable response. “Oh my, I was so bad at physics at school” or the classic “luckily I don’t have to do it anymore. I only did it because my course required it”. Understandable of course. I would say the same thing about German or French. But what I hear most often is that TU Delft students come across as arrogant. If I would have one euro for every time I have heard that TU Delft students believe that they are wonderful, I would be able to build two tram tracks through the campus.
From day one of your course you are brainwashed and start believing that you are doing the best study
It is hardly surprising that after completing a course at TU Delft, you experience a certain feeling of elitism. I catch myself feeling this too sometimes. When I started my course, I heard whispers that I was starting on one of the most difficult studies in the Netherlands and maybe even the whole world. And if you make it, knowing that only 60% get through the first year, you must be special. It doesn’t help that from day one of your course during the OWee and first-years’ weekend, you are brainwashed and start believing that you are doing the best study there is and are therefore automatically the best person. Even I sometimes have to look twice when I see the subjects that my recently graduated connections on LinkedIn are working on that have such convoluted and perplexing titles.
Now that my days are spent on my internship, I see that highly analytical skills and a penchant for solving complex problems do bring me far. But I also see that people who have studied history, law, nutrition or who have not even gone through university at all, can do some things a lot better and can also solve complex problems just as easily as I can.
If I tell someone that I am studying at TU Delft, I do not want to immediately see a fleeting look of disappointment because they assume that they are meeting yet another arrogant TU Delft student. What I would like to see is a sign of relief when they realise that they are meeting a friendly and well trained person.
So let’s band together as TU Delft students and break this stereotype. Let’s forget about the bicycles and prove that we are more than just our course books. After all, at TU Delft you may be studying something amazing, but you can also enjoy a good conversation about history, art, or even something as simple as the weather. Let’s change the reputation of TU Delft from arrogant to multifaceted, from exclusive to open. In the end, it’s not only about how difficult the course is, but also how accomplished the person behind it is.
Bas Rooijakkers is a master’s student in Applied Physics. He was born in Brabant and spent part of his youth on Curaçao. He enjoys jogging and since the corona pandemic has also picked up cycling. He is also always in for a coffee or a craft beer.
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B.A.S.Rooijakkers@student.tudelft.nl
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