How Covid-19 influenced my development

When I first heard about Covid-19 I was quite anxious about how my life-style would be affected by it. The pandemic started in the middle of my first year as an international student in Amsterdam. I had had 6 months of fun, multicultural, new and interesting experiences as a first year student before I was not able to go for a drink in the city centre anymore. I was so excited about all the experiences that were about to come, when all of the sudden everything changed.

The rest of my first year of university was incomparable to the first half of it. I had all sorts of worth-telling stories gained from September to March, and than absolutely nothing about the following months. Or at least that is what I thought at the time. Lat year in March I thought it was all going to pass in a few months. I thought everything would go back to normal in no time. I was not even able to imagine how the World would look if the cases keep increasing.

It was only during the first semester of my second year of study when I realised this period of time is not ideal, but it is a great opportunity to start reflecting on my objectives for the future. I had finally realised that even tough I am missing on quite a few activities I was hoping on doing during my student years, this is an one in a life-time chance to take a break from everything and reflect on myself. What do I want from my future career? Where do I want to live in the future? What is the subject I enjoy the most? What do I see myself doing 10 years from now? Am I in the right place to fulfil my dreams? I was finally able to take a break from the loudness and busyness of the World and ask myself those questions.

By answering these questions to myself I was able to get to know myself on a whole other level. I made myself realise what my ambitions are, what I want my future to look like, what my strengths and weaknesses are and what are the exact steps that I need to take to achieve my goals. I also came to the conclusion that any problem I might have, will become a great opportunity with the right perspective.