I’m sick, but I still went to the European Parliament

Figure 1: There are two locations for the European Parliament, one in Brussels and another in France.  Here is an image of the one in Brussels, the one we visited today.

Today’s schedule consisted of visiting the Parliamentarium museum, European Parliament, and participating in a role-playing game where the students step into the shoes of a Member of the European Parliament. That was all fine and dandy until I decided to go back to the hostel super early and rest a bit more because my health started to fail me. Fortunately, Jeroen (my professor who prefers to be called by first name) assisted me in purchasing some European medicine to help me with my condition. (I got excited because now I get to experience my first dose of European drugs.) Petra (my GSI), assisted me in the 30 minute walk back to the hostel. As I was walking back to the hostel, I started to reflect on my interactions with my professor and GSI because it was very different from what I was used to.

In my past four years of college, I was under the regulations of my chemical engineering professors, who showed no mercy if I got sick – Jeroen, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He literally came up to me and asked me if I was okay, that he could tell I was sick, and that he was actually concerned about my health. I guess it showed that he cared because he accompanied me to the pharmacy and helped me out with the language barrier by communicating with the receptionist in Dutch so that there would be no misunderstanding with whatever medications I actually needed. My chemical engineering professors never came close to showing that much care. I still remember my freshman year of college, I was pretty sick, and I emailed my professors/GSIs if I could get an extension on a problem set or reschedule the quiz/midterm. The responses I got were “It is none of my business to know what your medical condition is” or “It’s not the end of the world if you miss a midterm or a problem set. You’ll just get a zero on your grade report.” The worse card they pulled on me was “Did you not pay attention the first day when we went over the syllabus? There are no acceptations to the schedule or grading policy. If you need to miss a midterm, just retake the class next year.” So… I always did my best to be in lecture or the day of the exam just to survive college.

Perhaps that’s just the way American professors are like, but I think it’s safe to say that since Jeroen grew up in Flanders, he’s more Dutch than he is American. In the reader, it mentions how the Dutch see such unfortunate conditions, such as poor health, to “not be the people’s own fault, and therefore they should be given the chance to be normal (13)”. A Czechoslovakian was impressed by how the Dutch “take care of the weak here! Take ill people for example: one may be ill for some weeks a couple times a year, they just keep paying you (14).”At first, when Jeroen mentioned he wouldn’t mind if I missed a little bit of the program to rest a bit more, I was hesitant to believe him because I still looked at him as if he was an American, chemical engineering professor. He could have easily pulled the same card as them and said that he prepared the itinerary for the program well in advanced, so I should know what’s next, but after realizing that the Dutch are very different from American professors, I found it much easier to believe Jeroen when he says it’s okay to miss a bit of the program to rest some more. I appreciate how the Dutch genuinely take care of people and how I can finally relax and not worry about getting a zero in my grade book.