The room is very tidy. A few Polaroid snapshots and some photography equipment – “I never leave home without a camera” – offer a glimpse into the life of the person who lives there. In the corner sits a height-adjustable desk: “I stood working at it just this morning.”
A knack for languages
Nils Backes has almost completed his bachelor’s degree in International Business (IB). It has been about three years since he moved from Bonn, Germany, to Maastricht. He wanted to study an English-taught programme, and “the Netherlands is ahead of Germany in this regard”. Unlike many of his compatriots, Backes speaks English without a trace of a German accent. The fact that he spent a year studying at a high school in the United States – his first time living abroad –likely played a role in this. Hungry for more, he planned to teach English in Paraguay after secondary school. Unfortunately, the pandemic threw a spanner in the works, and he ended up in Ghent, Belgium, instead. “Ik spreek Vlaams”, he says humbly, “but”, he continues in English, “my Flemish is a bit rusty. Here in Maastricht, everyone defaults to English.” He’s in the process of learning yet another language, taking Spanish lessons to prepare for a semester abroad in Peru. He’s leaving in February.
Creative side
In Ghent, he volunteered at a Catholic community centre. “I’m not very religious, but I was involved in the Church. I took photos and videos of the events they organised on special occasions such as Advent and Easter. At the Cathedral of Antwerp, I even got to work with a company that specialises in streaming church services.” It was during his time in Ghent that Backes rediscovered his creative side, which he’d first got in touch with when he was a little boy. “I used to draw with my mother. I always liked her drawings better than my father’s. If I inherited any talent, I must’ve got it from her. In secondary school, I took a Leistungskurs, an advanced course, in art.”
Backes was one of the best students in his class – the third best, to be precise. After finishing secondary school, he felt “torn between his creative and his academic side”. He had the world at his feet, but he couldn’t throw away the opportunity to go to university. Who told him that? “I did. My parents didn’t mind either way. I talked it over with my brother, who told me to do what I wanted to do.” He and his brother are twins, but not identical; they’re very different in looks and personalities. “I always got better grades. It’s not that I’m smarter, but I studied harder. My brother was less of a perfectionist.” Perhaps surprisingly, then, Backes’s brother ended up pursuing the “more difficult” degree: electrical engineering in Aachen, Germany. There appears to be no sibling rivalry between them – quite the opposite, in fact. They used to play football and, later, American football together. “He’s really good at it”, says Backes proudly.
Wanderlust
After his creative gap year in Ghent, Backes continued to grapple with the decision of whether to study art. He considered pursuing a combined degree in art and business at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, but ultimately concluded that “art could be a hobby” and settled on International Business at Maastricht University. Not necessarily because it posed the greatest intellectual challenge – after all, he says, it’s not rocket science. “It’s a high-paying degree”, he grins, “but that wasn’t my main reason for choosing it.”
Backes doesn’t regret his decision. He has learnt a great deal, he says, even though some topics “weren’t explored in depth”. He particularly enjoys the marketing courses, which “require creativity. And I’m good at strategic marketing and sales.” He also gained some practical experience during an internship last summer, working in the marketing and product development department of a software start-up in Cologne, Germany. He still has an online job there. When asked about it, he launches into an explanation using technical terms like user flow design, UI, UX… He tries to clarify, but the reporter has heard enough, thank you. Backes laughs – it’s not the first time someone has said this to him.
After completing his bachelor’s degree, he plans to take another gap year, dedicated to internships. “Before choosing a master’s programme – anywhere but Maastricht; Vienna or Copenhagen, or even Rotterdam, though that feels a bit too safe after Maastricht – I’d like to gain more work experience in both larger and smaller companies. Internships offer a greater degree of flexibility than a job would. Eventually, I’d like to combine business with my creative side, perhaps in digital services.”
He would like to do at least one internship in Germany, now that his wanderlust has simmered down a bit. “I used to think that anywhere was better than Germany. But among friends, it’s just easiest to express yourself in your native language, especially when it comes to humour. And as it turns out, Germany isn’t all that bad.” He will need a crash course in German business jargon, though, after studying in English.