‘This year I will be participating in the green card lottery for a residence permit in America for the first time. Every year, random people are selected via this lottery who receive a residence permit. The chance that it will work right away is not very big, that’s why I’m going to participate in it every year from now on. If you win you don’t have to move immediately, you have a number of years to use it. If I am drawn out before the end of my studies, I will see if I can continue my studies in America.
‘As a designer I helped make comics for children with chronic diseases such as leukemia.’
‘During my previous training as a graphic designer, I already did an internship in New York for four months. As a designer I helped make comics for children with chronic diseases such as leukemia. The comics were distributed in hospitals so that children could read about their illness themselves and better understand what is going on with them. Very nice work.
‘I stayed in an all-male, six-storey student house with 88 rooms. My room was about two by four meters, actually more like a walk-in closet and that took some getting used to. But it was also a really nice community and we had a shared library where we all watched the superbowl – a cool experience.
‘I worked in the middle of the city center on 42nd street, it was like a movie that was played at an accelerated pace.’
“I once took the subway on a Saturday night. That was crazy. There was a complete ping pong table that was played with a referee and everything. Those are fun moments, but there is also a completely different side. There is no healthcare for everyone, so in the same metro you also see the bums with large wounds on their legs that stink and rot. The contrasts are quite fierce; the rich are driven around in expensive cars while in the subway some people almost die.
‘New York is really a city where you have to make it, otherwise you won’t really be looked after. I was working in the middle of the city center on 42nd street, it looked like a movie that was playing at an accelerated pace. Nevertheless, people are generally more cordial and attentive than in the Netherlands. They also like to share their experiences, and for these reasons the American culture appeals to me more than the Dutch culture. Life can be hard, I have also seen that if you work hard enough dreams can really become reality.
‘I have also seen that if you work hard enough, dreams can really become reality.’
‘The internship in New York strengthened my idea that I would like to start my own business one day, so I decided to study creative marketing & sales. With this study I can use my creativity, and at the same time learn in the economic field what it takes to start my own creative venture. I want to combine those two worlds.
‘I only thought that we would use our creativity more to solve problems, but until now we have mainly been working on creative expressions within existing solutions and we have to design something in a beautiful way, for example. I do hope that this will change in the course of the training and that we will learn to think more creatively.
‘The idea that technology is changing the world very quickly inspires me.’
‘The idea that technology is changing the world very quickly inspires me. That things that now seem sci-fi may soon become reality. To keep abreast of all these developments, I listen to podcasts a lot every day while walking. Freakonomics is one of them, and it deals with America’s economy. The CEO of Netflix was recently interviewed and that was very instructive. Daily Tech News I listen to to stay informed about the American tech industry, to know which deals have been made by major companies and what the latest important developments are.
“Should I manage to move to America, I’ll probably go to Silicon Valley. My dream is to create something of value in a creative way in the future, for example with Artificial Intelligence, that really benefits people. Kind of like Neuralink that Elon Musk is working on right now. This is software that stimulates and improves cells in the brain, a kind of upgrade that also makes telepathic communication possible. But before that I want to make good connections here first. That’s why I registered for the University of Applied Sciences’ Start-up Academy and am going to join a student association.’
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Text: Wietse Pottjewijd
Photo: ThomasWichers
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