Noisy welcome to new students

Traditionally, freshmen in the auditorium receive a warm, and above all, loud welcome. Although, welcome? The new students had done their utmost to deafeningly belt out bring out their study association songs and out do the others. The song of the Society of Aerospace Students (VSV Leonardo da Vinci) goes as follows:

“Feel the world of Aerospace, for you and for me and for all the other VSVs.
There are people flying and a few that go into space. We are better than other SVs!”

 

They had to endure the yelling of students from other studies who, among other things, retaliated with “Fokker is bankrupt! Fokker is bankrupt!” or “Where are the women? Where are the women?”

 

The yelling was followed by TU Delft’s and the OWee Board’s official welcome. For the first time, this welcome was entirely in English because from now on the international students will attend the same introduction programme as the Dutch students.

And so Professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen jokingly talked about well-known people from Delft like Van Leeuwenhoek (‘Antoni of the Lioncorner’) and Pechtold (‘Alexander Badlucktold’). He also talked about the major societal challenges the students will face as engineers, such as energy transition and climate change.

Alderman and former student Bas Vollebregt told them that WiFi was invented by a TU Delft employee and that it is highly unadvisable to jump into the canals because of all the dumped bicycles. He encouraged them to seek contact with other residents of Delft.

 

Finally, Rector Magnificus Tim van der Hagen – who called himself ‘the hottest man in the building’ because of his toga – had some tips for the new students: learn by doing; make use of 60; student associations and take responsibility during their study because ‘nobody checks your homework’.