Another two weeks and he will be finished. Diaz Kam, third-year bachelor’s student of European Public Health is one of the few people in the Student Services Centre with his laptop on Wednesday morning. “It feels strange to be almost finished,” he says. Originally from The Hague, he moved to Maastricht three years ago. He ended up in a house in Wyck, which he shared with eighteen (!) others. “I started my search rather late, so I was happy with whatever.” He learned from that. Kam will be leaving South Limburg for Sweden in August, for a master’s of Health Economics & Policy at the university of Stockholm. “I already have a room!”
Kam did not spend the last six months in Maastricht. He had an internship at the European Commission in Brussels. “That took some getting used to, suddenly working 40 hours a week while completing my thesis in the evenings.” He only had time for social activities at the weekend. “It is great to wander around Maastricht like a student again.”
Within the field of public health and medicines, Kam looked at the accessibility of certain medicines – can patients get them easily? His thesis is about the EU legislation that deals with this.
“I am actually ‘working for my internship’ today, but I am just pushing my mouse about every now and again. I would rather be finishing my thesis at the moment,” he laughs. That has to be done outside work time. The writing process, by the way, was not a positive experience for him at all. “I thought: ‘That is just something you do’, but the five months went by much quicker than I thought. Sometimes, I look at my screen and nothing comes to me.” Where he prefers to write? As long as it is not at home, is the resolute answer. “Too much distraction.”