Pretend Students and Pressure to Perform

Sometimes, one lie can lead to another. 'The exam went fine,' can snowball into 'I'm graduating soon,' and after a while, it can be tough to find a way out of the lies. Job van Ballegoijen de Jong has experienced it himself during his studies, and was a 'pretend student' for six years. Camée Comperen also has experience with pretending to be enrolled in courses, while, in fact, she needed some time off, and had unregistered. They tell their stories to Marleen Blootens.

Marleen talks with Job and Camée about expectations, shame and a lack of space to fuck up. How did they get into their situations? How did they cope with the isolation it involved? And how did they, eventually, get out? Job van Ballegoijen de Jong is a lawyer at a firm on the ZuidAs. Camée Comperen is a student at the Vrije Universiteit.

The Connective is a production of NEWConnective and VU Campusradio. The song you hear is by Jacob Montague, and is called 'Winter Tropics'; we've acquired the necessary music license at MusicBed.