The Top Talents Scheme
Radboud University's Top Talents Scheme supports students with flexible study planning, personal guidance and sometimes financial support to combine their studies with top achievements in sport or art. Jess heard about the scheme through her student advisor in her second year. ‘It really takes the pressure off,’ she says. ‘Without this scheme, it would be much more stressful to combine everything.’ The Frisian Pop Award for ‘Best Newcomer’ helped her prove she was eligible for the scheme.
Jess: the basist from Basse
‘’It's quite comical: I play bass and come from Basse.’ From the Netherlands to America and even South Africa, Jess is on stage. Music is in her blood: her father also plays in a band, and her mother is a big music lover. Since September 2019, Jess has been playing with Cloudsurfers, right in the period when she also started studying philosophy. ‘It's nice that I can do both, without having to choose between my studies and my music,’ Jess says.
What it requires from the student
The arrangement allows Jess to flexibly plan her studies around her band's gigs and tours, but it does require a lot of organisation. For each semester, she draws up a schedule of gigs, exams and deadlines, and informs her lecturers which lectures she can or cannot attend. ‘My fellow students also help me a lot by sending me their notes, so I can update everything properly,’ she says.
On foreign tours, she uses the long drives to read and write. ‘Sometimes I spend hours on the bus with my nose in the books,’ she laughs. On a recent tour of Eastern Europe, Jess had to hand in a paper in North Macedonia and the tour bus table became her desk. Still, the poor internet connection was a challenge. ‘I just thought: no, I have to hand this in now!’ After the band drove around all the gas stations looking for good coverage, a venue employee finally came to her rescue with wifi, allowing her to meet her deadline after all.
Between gigs, Jess likes to visit bookstores or churches, places where her love for philosophy comes alive. She reads books and seeks out writers from those countries the tour takes her to. ‘The combination of being creative, making music and visiting places where philosophers also once went keeps me motivated and inspires me enormously.’
The role of teachers
Teachers play an important role in the success of the top talent scheme. Justine Bakker, one of Jess's tutors, describes her as an excellent student and appreciates her proactive approach. ‘She keeps me well informed about her schedule and what she needs,’ Justine says. ‘She is so driven and organises everything so well that I hardly had any extra work to do.’ Justine provides Jess with flexibility, such as allowing her to hand in assignments later. ‘But that only happened once at most,’ Justine adds.
During the Great Texts course, taught by Kyrke Otto and characterised by a lot of interaction between students, Jess was almost always present. Later in the exam period, it proved difficult to combine performances and exams, so Jess asked for a third exam opportunity from the exam board. ‘This kind of situation happens more often, and it's just part of our job,’ Kyrke said. ‘It cost me a bit of extra time; I had to create new questions and invigilate when taking the exam.’
Options within the Top Talent Scheme
In Jess's case, flexible study planning is the main option because philosophy is a smaller programme, where there are fewer opportunities to adjust the timetable. In larger programmes, there are often more options, such as watching back lectures and preferential placement in working groups. ‘The aim of this is to give students more control over their timetable, so that they can coordinate it better with sports training or, for example, music activities,’ explains Sofie van Bremen (Top Talent Coordinator).
Education and talent can go hand in hand
For Jess, the scheme is the best of both worlds. ‘Even though it is sometimes difficult to plan, especially if a spontaneous booking suddenly comes in, the fact that I can study AND make music is really perfect for me.’ Thanks to the flexibility and good communication between Jess, her student advisers and lecturers, it creates an environment where she can fully develop her talents, both on stage and in academia. ‘I even heard that my band and I are sometimes topics of conversation among lecturers,’ she enthuses. ‘My student adviser also started listening to our music on Spotify. I loved hearing that so much; you really feel seen.’