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Recently, I met an environmental biology student on a bus. In the short fifteen minutes we spent between the campus and Kanaleneiland, we found out that we are both GSLS students. Being at the end of our studies, we used this serendipitous meeting to reflect on our personal growth while attending the GSLS. We almost immediately discovered that we failed to completely identify with the graduate school and speculated where the line is between a fictional graduate school of medical sciences and our graduate school of life sciences.

I find the difference between medical and general life sciences lies within personal motivations of people. I study Toxicology and Environmental Health to help prevent any ailment to any life. Others within the GSLS strive to find solutions to human problems. This leaves the people striving to find solutions to non-human problems. The people, I must admit, I never thought about until this very bus ride.

The first thing my travel buddy explained, was that she is unsure how to write her reflection on the LSA lectures. The problem was that most, if not all of the talks provided were about medicine. And when talks discussed something different, such as the one on grants, they were very meta. We both come from biological backgrounds, so on their own, these talks do interest us. But they did not add to the knowledge we gained during the programmes.

I study Toxicology and Environmental Health to help prevent any ailment to any life

Choosing electives was also a struggle for us. None of them seemed to align with our programmes. Fair, we follow research masters and during internships you always learn more than you think. So should electives be that much of a problem, you could ask us. We cannot help but think they are. As long-time UU students we are very accustomed to the broadness and elective options of our Bachelor programmes, something the UU takes pride in. But it also means we have lots of theoretical knowledge on multiple topics, and therefore relatively little on our majors.

Should I call myself an ecologist after graduation? Because I do not feel like one.

At this point, the bus trip became a bit of an echo chamber - which does not mean that it should be left unsaid, so I am happily sharing our thoughts with you. But the one thing that made it very real was this open, but very concluding question of my new friend: “Should I call myself an ecologist after graduation? Because I do not feel like one.”

Human topics are still relevant for my studies, even while my own interests lie outside this scope. But she does not have that luck. And I think that any medical student can be just as interested in a course or talk on, let’s say, a plant plague, as we are in the medical ones. So why not switch it around sometimes? Skip a hot topic like cancer or the pandemic and go into the wonders and problems of all nature. Then, all GSLS students might feel like GSLS students.