Just two more days, then Mridula Pradeep (22), who finished the Maastricht Science Programme Bachelor’s in January, will move back to her parents’ in Utrecht. “For the summer, after that, I’m starting a two-year Master’s in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen. That’s an hour’s commute from Utrecht – doable, but once I get to know some people, I’m going to ask around if anyone knows of a room.”
Letting it go
Moving back home – in September, she wouldn’t have dreamt of it. Back then she said that while she loved her parents, she is also very keen on her freedom. “I’ve changed my mind on that, I’m looking forward to it. My parents are getting older, we were throwing a frisbee around on the beach recently and I noticed they were getting tired sooner than they used to. It’s hard to watch. I like that I can spend more time with them, although I’m sure my patience will be tested. You develop your own habits in the four years you’ve lived alone, that’s probably going to clash occasionally.”
It’s not the only thing that has changed over the last year, she says. “I’ve learnt to let things go more. I actually wanted to move to Wageningen before the summer, get my driving licence during the months off, and complete the naturalisation procedure to become Dutch. I didn’t manage all of that, but that’s fine. Those things will happen. I used to find it very scary to lose control, but now I’ve seen that if you let something go, it creates room for something else.”
Wild and mysterious beauty
Lovely trips, for example, like the one she took to Portugal with her boyfriend Kristian. “A week on the Algarve coast. We hired a car, so that we could also drive to the less touristy spots. It was beautiful, and in a strange way it felt like home: the Indian state of Goa used to be a Portuguese colony and lots of houses there were built in the same style.” She also went on a trip to Serbia with her Maastricht hiking group MSP B.E.A.R. “One of the members is from there and he really wanted to show us his homeland. We were in a small village in the mountains, it had a wild and mysterious beauty. I didn’t know the others very well, but we felt very comfortable around each other surprisingly quickly.”
In the meantime, training for a Hyrox event, in which participants run for eight kilometres, interspersed with eight exercises, such as rowing or running while carrying heavy weights, has not slowed. Although the maxim there has been the same: let it go. “I thought I would progress steadily, but it’s a question of ups and downs. At first, that was hard, but now I think, ‘alright, a challenge, bring it on!’”
Doing nothing
This year, she discovered that her mind and her body could handle more than she thought, but that sometimes you also need to just do nothing. “I’ve always found that tough. At university, the rhythm is go, go, go. Study by day and a social life by night. Now I tell myself to calm down if I feel restless because I think like I’m not doing enough.”
All these experiences have had an effect. “I feel more confident, I feel good. There is a quote: ‘See every mistake you make as a step to more self-belief’. I’ve tried to make that my motto over the last year.”