Year in Review - 2021

My PAC (Peru-Austria-Canada – that’s what our master’s program is called, but we call our group that) and I have often discussed how this year feels like a big blur that has just flown by. So many things to continuously line up, constantly having to be flexible due to being in an international program during a pandemic, countless encounters with new people and cultures, and a whole collection of memories and friendships that will last a lifetime. It’s been a year filled with adventuring, exploring, studying, celebrating, and a little bit of stress every once in a while.

2021 was the international portion of my global master’s program. The first term started in Victoria, Canada where I attended courses at the University of Victoria. It had been about a year since I physically sat in a lecture hall multiple times a day – this was a very welcome change. The quality of learning is just better (in my opinion) and relationships with classmates actually form. In April, our courses started at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria but were all online. After that term, the international year continued in June at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. The whole reason I picked this program was to study Spanish and live in Lima, Peru. Unfortunately, this was all online and travelling to Lima was not possible. However, I cannot feel too sorry for myself because my backup plan gave me the best summer of my life. I moved to Sint Maarten where a part of the PAC came to live with me as well. We spent our mornings on zoom, our afternoons on the beach, and our evenings on the dance floor. They call it paradise. I don’t disagree. After successful completion and presentation of a thesis and consulting project with a business in Peru, we all earned our MBA from PUCP. These eight months were the “international year”.

September was finally a month without classes. September 2020 was the last time I fully had a break, so I was incredibly happy to shut the laptop for a few weeks. This time was spent with family in the Netherlands. My mom was also in the Netherlands the whole month, which made this period even more special. In October, I headed back to Linz to complete my remaining courses. These were in person for a month and a half before everything went online again and Austria went into lockdown... again. (That country loves lockdowns, I swear.) In December, I packed up my room and fled the country to go back to the Netherlands, just like the year before. There I packed up my 81- & 85-year-old grandparents and took them to Sint Maarten to spend the holidays with my family. We had three amazing weeks escaping the cold and constantly increasing government regulations. Now, the three of us are back in Friesland (Netherlands), where I will stay another week before returning to Austria to finish up the last few weeks of courses.

The absolute blessing of being a dual citizen has granted me the possibility to stay flexible when courses went online. This was the case in April, when I could just stay home in Lakin amid all the corona uncertainty in Austria. This too was why I could be in Sint Maarten for as long as I wanted because of my Dutch nationality. My Dutch passport also allows me to roam around the EU whenever I want, for as long as I want, making it possible to go back to family whenever the Austrian government makes life less appealing. This unique possibility has given me the world of opportunities, literally.

2021 will go down as one of the greats. Especially during such an uncertain time period, my peers and I are truly fortunate to have experienced so much. I could not have asked for better friends who have made me feel so at home in Austria and are spontaneous enough to come to the Caribbean with me. Every location and each situation are an escapade with the PAC.