She already knows the date: on 31 January 2026, Indian student Mridula Pradeep (21) hopes to receive her Bachelor’s degree in the Maastricht Science Programme. Before then, she still has to delve into the effects of dietary carbohydrates on the glucose levels of people with diabetes. “I am writing a systematic review of it, which means that I am studying and analysing how convincing the evidence is. Providing an overview like this, will enable healthcare providers to offer even better advice.”
A thesis on nutrition, not what Pradeep was expecting when she came to Maastricht three years ago. “I wanted to become a chemist, inspired by three incredible teachers I had at secondary school. But it turned out that chemistry at a university level wasn’t really my cup of tea.” Unfortunate. “You have a vision of the future in your head, you have to let that go. It was hard, but in the end I’m glad I had to make that difficult choice. It led to me getting to understand myself even better.”
"Wow, this is it"
In the Maastricht Science Programme, students can set their own curriculum. She chose modules such as palaeontology and computer programming, but once she was introduced to human biology, her heart was won. “I took cell biology, genetics, molecular biology – I wanted to explore the subject further and further. During the elective on metabolism, nutrition and exercise, it was as if something exploded in my brain. I thought, wow, this is it!”
Pradeep grew up with her parents, brother and paternal grandparents in Chennai, a city on the southwestern coast of India. When she was sixteen, the family moved to Utrecht, to join her father who had moved there for work a year previously. She arrived in a new country right in the middle of the covid pandemic in 2020. “In the beginning, it took a lot of getting used to. Just the weather – a lot colder! People here keep to themselves more; in India, neighbours would bring food, my grandparents lived in the same house, and everyone always wanted to know everything you had going on. And I didn’t speak the language. In India, I was always much more extroverted, that changed here. Thankfully, I had my friends in India, they called me almost every single day, they were my biggest supporters.”
Nosy friends
Slowly but surely, she made a home for herself here. “Now I have ‘my’ people here, too. My housemates and I always ask where we’ve been and what we’ve done. I like that kind of nosiness, it shows that people are genuinely interested.” And then there’s her boyfriend Kristian: they’ve been together 2.5 years now, and Pradeep would love to grow old with him. “We dream of living in a cottage, where we can have lots of animals and grow our own food.”
Although probably not in the Netherlands (“we have to be realistic about house prices”). “Maybe in southern Europe. I need more sunlight, but my parents want to stay in Utrecht and I don’t want to move to a different continent. That would be too far away. I admit, I wanted to study some way away from them, as I do value my freedom – growing up as a girl in India can mean you are very sheltered – but I do love them a lot.”
Time for hobbies
That is a topic for later, first she has to choose what she wants to do after her degree. “I’m debating between a Master’s in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen, a Master’s in Biomedical Sciences specialising in nutrition here at Maastricht, or working for a bit. I’m leaning towards the first Master’s programme, because that would allow you to become a certified nutritionist. I would like to combine Western and Eastern knowledge – such as the traditional Indian medicine Ayurveda. There are so many prejudices on both sides, Eastern medicine is based solely on herbs, Western medicine stuffs you full of pills. Neither is true.”
For now, she is most looking forward to the months off after her graduation. “I’ll finally have time for my hobbies again. I practise yoga, would love to do a yoga teacher training in India. I want to take up grappling [a form of wrestling] again. You have to show a certain type of creativity, for example, you have to find ways to defeat someone who is twenty kilos heavier than you. You have to use your brains in a different way, just like with bouldering, another sport I enjoy. It also teaches me that my own mind is sometimes what limits me – I have a terrible fear of heights – but if you just do something, it often isn’t as bad as you feared.”