“Not long now and then I’ll have some time off,” says Noé Breeur happily as he calculates out loud how many days without classes lie ahead of him. “A month or so, I don’t have any classes in January. I have to finish and assignment, but I’m working on that with another student, so I’ll definitely see them. But that’s about it.”
The student from Liége is looking forward to the final exam he will have to sit before he can close the doors of the university behind him. He could use a good result. “I failed my first exams. That in itself is an experience,” he acknowledges. “But I feel confident about the next one.”
In August, Breeur told Observant that he had heard his degree programme was tough, and it certainly hasn’t disappointed in that regard. “There is a lot of information to process in English, which is not my mother tongue. I have to work hard at it, and that takes time.” But he freely admits that, despite that added challenge, he could have done better in his first period. “I was a bit careless, underestimated what I would have to do and learn.”
It turns out he wasn’t the only one. “Of the seven hundred first years, only 24 passed everything. That knocked my confidence a bit.” It also took a while for him to find his feet at the Law faculty. “I had expected more of a bond between my group mates, there was very little contact.”
Looking forward
Breeur is most looking forward to what lies ahead. “I’m curious about the second year, when we will go into a bit more depth, and after that you can choose what you want to focus on even more specifically, even with a Master’s.” He is most drawn to the practical side of the programme. “I enjoy looking into different subjects and cases. We’re mostly concentrating on the basics at the moment. I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying that all that much, but enough to carry on.”
Noé Breeur at the INKOM, late august
To make his life easier around his exams, he has temporarily moved into student housing near the station. “Very practical. It’s the house of someone I know who has gone away for a few weeks.” When they’re back, Breeur will be back to commuting between Liége and Maastricht. As he was too late to apply for accommodation, he was stuck with catching the train every day, he told Observant in the summer. “I still do. In the first period, I would wake up at half past five if I had to start at half past eight. It’s very hard to get a foothold on the housing market, I find it all very bureaucratic. It’s also very expensive, especially in the centre, you almost have to live outside the city if you want to be able to afford anything. Right now, I want to show my parents that I’m putting in the effort and then maybe I can ask them to help me out a little.”
As long as he is forced to commute, the social side of studying has to take a back seat. “I don’t have time for it, and my friends, who are studying psychology, have even less. I don’t get out anywhere beyond the library and the faculty, and I don’t really know anything about Maastricht, other than that the Christmas market is very nice. We don’t have anything like that.”