When I graduated from high school, I had a clear plan: finish my bachelor’s degree in three years, and then head into the world well-prepared. But I got to know myself better: my avoidance, my restlessness, my chaotic way of working. And so, almost without realizing it, I became a forever student.
Hopping from one study programme to another, simply because you have no idea where you want to be in ten years. Staying up countless nights with housemates, friends, and strangers at Uilenstede. Spending more time in your study association’s lounge than in tutorials or lectures — without any sign of guilt.
At first, the label ‘forever student’ felt like failure. Questions at family gatherings. Peers who seemed ‘ahead’. A broader sense that everything has to be efficient, fast, and market-oriented. As if higher education were a production line, and you the end product, expected to be ‘finished’ in three or four years.
But let’s be honest: that image doesn’t hold up. The university is, above all, a place where you’re allowed to wander, fail, and start over. Learning isn’t a means to an end — it’s a goal in itself. Just ask former Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende, who spent five years at Uilenstede. Or his successor Mark Rutte, who took eight years to complete his bachelor’s degree.
And so, as expectations begin to erode, you learn to embrace the label of ‘forever student’. You acknowledge and integrate your shortcomings — because that’s where growth truly happens. And you realize performance isn’t limited to exam results; you learn just as much outside the classroom.
The student association lounges, where you initially came for fun, turn out to be incubators of initiative: together with its members, you try to shape policy into something more personable, more playful, something that actually fits student reality.
The fight against budget cuts — through which an entire study program can apparently disappear, leaving dozens of students without an alternative — teaches you to stand up for those without a voice.
The protests for Palestine show you that the call for justice is rarely comfortable, but precisely because of that, all the more important.
These moments shape you more than any exam ever could. They require courage, patience, and empathy — qualities developed most thoroughly in the space between failing and trying again.
I’ll stay a forever student. Swaying and stumbling, but always moving forward. Because what’s a forever student, if not someone who refuses to stand still?