A seat at the table

I don’t write this column just for fun; someone asked me to do it. Either that, or the site administrator had some private photos that I would rather not see the light of day, and he or she promised to keep them to him/herself in exchange for me writing four columns per year. It’s possible, of course, but really, is that something you would expect from the VU Amsterdam? That was a rhetorical question. I have the privilege of writing in this space because I was once enrolled in the VU Amsterdam. If I remember correctly, it was in September 1981. It took me six years to finish my degree. In that time, I took classes in several subjects, but I only earned a degree in one. And now my children have to call me by my archaic title: Doctorandus. (It took me three attempts to spell that word correctly, so I’m not even going to try to spell allillumnus)

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if my former classmates had no idea that I was there in the lecture halls with them, much less my professors at the time. I didn’t stand out, and I liked it that way. I was only there when it was absolutely necessary, I did what they asked me to do, I tried to pass a test now and then, and the rest of the time I was either training in my running shoes or I was resting from my last endurance race or sprints. I was known back then as ‘the White Kenyan from Buitenveldert’, but only in my own imagination.

There are some people, especially at such a respected ‘institute of higher learning’, as our former friends from the United Kingdom so aptly describe it, whom everyone expects to go far in life. Either because they excel, they get noticed, they take charge, or their father has contacts with the higher-ups in the business world or with politicians from Limburg. These are people whom you are absolutely certain to see wearing a horrible tie and leading an equally horrible financial institution; people who already seem to have a conservative three-piece suit in their closet and a parliament seat in their pocket. I wasn’t one of those people. Although I have worn a suit on occasion, but let’s not get into the content of those pictures just right now.

But… But…

Despite my mediocre academic performance, despite my sporadic attendance and my nonexistent reputation during my studies, and despite having a father with no useful contacts whatsoever, this year I found myself closer to power than anyone ever would have expected. During the Correspondents Dinner in the Beurs van Berlage, I sat at a table with a successful media tycoon and his wife, a leading European Liberal who makes multinationals shudder, the most successful actress in the Netherlands, an award-winning journalist, a highly popular television host, a representative of the Government Information Service and some other guy. Oh yeah, I think he was the Prime Minister or something. Not bad, right?

I recently realised that I know lots of people who attended university, and who have achieved more in less time than I have, but I don’t know anyone who works in the field that they earned their degree in. Everyone comes from somewhere else, or ended up where they least expected. That doesn’t mean that their studies were a waste of time, however. You learn, just as I did, all sorts of things during your years at university. But life determines where you end up, not your diploma, your tie or your suit. In my case, I ended up at a dinner table. And in this column.

> Comedian Dolf Jansen writes a quarterly column for VU Magazine.