Summary theme 7: The Future

What do we want?

The first goal that comes to mind talking about the future is:  graduate from this school in about a year, off course with high marks.

Then:

* Frederieke wants to study a combination of economics and law in Rotterdam at the Erasmus University. After that she doesn’t know yet, but perhaps she will become a lawyer or a judge.

* Eva wants to study medicine, but she doesn’t know where yet. Utrecht (she was born there) and Leiden are still in the running for becoming Eva’s next hometown. After her study she wants to work at a hospital as a doctor.

Both of them (Eva and Frederieke) want to travel a lot during their lives. The part of the world that attracts us most is South-America. They both want to learn to speak Spanish.

When they’re older they want a handsome boyfriend and maybe marry him. They both also want children but they’ll think of their careers first.

* Nelleke like’s playing hockey, but she can’t say she’s that ambitious. It’s just fun. She also plays the piano and she really wants get better at it. Spending time with family and friends is also important. After school Nelleke wants to study medicine because she wants to become a doctor.

In Holland, it’s kind of difficult to get in a medicine study. There are too many students, who want to study it, so it’s a drawing of lots who gets in, unless you have finished your secondary school with extremely high marks.

* Frederique likes playing hockey but, just like Nelleke, she hasn’t got any big plans with it for the future. 

* Jenny likes to sing. She wants to take lessons again after graduating, but it’s not her ambition do make a living out of it. Both Frederique and Jenny have plans for studying psychology.

Remo, Bas and Johanna did a very original voicethread, actually speaking to us from out of the future (the year 2084, to be precisely), in which they have already accomplished many of their goals. For example:

* Remo has studied Liberal Arts and Sciences, an all English study in Middelburg involving a wide range of subjects. Apart from studying, he also made loads of fun. He has travelled a lot, seen some great world miracles, has visited a lot of music festivals.

* Bas studied medicine and is now a doctor, and above all: filthy rich.

* Johanna has studied semiology in Leuven (Belgium). She has travelled all over the world and she has met a lot of interesting people.

The three of them have also learned, from experience, that Comenius friends are the best friends you can ever have.

* Willemijn knows she wants to study and in Leiden, Nijmegen or Utrecht. She doesn’t know which study yet, but it has got to be something concerning the human body. Next to the studying, she also hopes for lots of fun during her university period. After 5 or 6 years she hopes she has learned to live on her own, and she wants to become a doctor or she wants to be in research. She would love to travel to South America (the rainforest) and New Zealand. She thinks money is important, when you want to do the things you want to, but it’s not the most important thing in the world.

* Cindy wants to study medicine and become a doctor. She knows she wants to travel to Indonesia, because her parents have lived there for a while and she was born there.

* Joris thinks doctors are important, but also scientists can make your life easier. That’s why he wants to study Electrical Engineering and Practical Physics at the University of Eindhoven. He hopes he can become a genius of the same level as Albert Einstein, Newton, Hawking and his personal favourite, Tesla. After his study, he wants to see the world, to change it and then come home to finally meet his beautiful wife and children.

Conclusions:

Well in fact our students have a lot in common, talking about their future plans. They all want to go to university in about a year. The most of them already know what they want (lots of doctors in the Holland Comenius house!), some of them know where they want to study, but just don’t know yet what to study.

Travelling is also a commonly shared ideal (hey, now I know why they wanted to be in this project!) They want to meet interesting people and to contain the relationships that they have already. An interesting fact is that most of the girls already dare to talk about having a husband and kids and stuff. The guys don’t talk about that. A question of maturity?

After all, they all want to enjoy life. Money is important, because if you don’t have it at all, there’s nothing you can do. And our students have a lot of things they want to do. But it’s not the most important thing.

Our parents had quite the same plans about the future as we do right now.

Have a career, a family and above all: be happy.

Some of our parents had big ideals, like world peace. They walked in protest campaigns and revolted against the government. They often had great plans for the future (becoming a dolphin trainer for example) that didn’t turn out the way they dreamt. But still, despite of a lot of changed plans the parents claim to be happy now after all.

Do we want to become like our parents? Well, not exactly like them off course, but most of our students have nice parents who have nice marriages. They also feel that you become a bit like your parents in a natural way. You will not be aware of that, but it will happen anyhow.

It ‘s not a bad thing, as long as you stick to yourself and remember the things that you find important in life.