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Alumni on ECLA

Martin Lipman, The Netherlands
Attended: Academy Year 2007/08
Currently: Student, The University of St. Andrews, Scotland

In many ways, I still find ECLA an unusual place and I think there are few who would say that it was just another year of university education. Whatever it does to people, I cannot imagine it leaving its students unmoved or indifferent. There is a stark contrast with regular universities, where legions of students trudge from assignment to assignment until they find themselves suddenly with a degree in their hands, thinking 'well, that was that.' One of the many effects that ECLA had on me is that it made me increasingly self-conscious about being a student. During the AY program it is almost impossible to forget that you are being educated, except perhaps during the occasional night out in Berlin. This feeling of being aware of my own education has not left me since.

I came to ECLA in order to familiarize myself with the humanities. I studied science at the University College of Utrecht in the Netherlands and decided that I wanted to pursue philosophy instead. ECLA seemed like the right place to go. Admittedly, because of some of its experimental aspects, I was a little skeptical whether it would deliver the intellectual goods so to say. Looking back however I can only conclude that the Academy Year Program has succeeded in building a rock-solid foundation for me in the humanities. Often I find myself drawing on the texts that I have read or reminding myself of the kind of critical attitude I should bear towards a 'big text.' In fact, I am tempted to say that the one year at ECLA has shaped me more than the three years that preceded it.

After ECLA, there came a second Bachelor at Leuven, then a Masters at Warwick and, currently, a second Masters at St Andrews. All of them are in philosophy. I am convinced that this elongated trajectory is a consequence of my experiences at ECLA. It became silly to think that universities know when I am ready to proceed, while only being a number in their registry. Besides, because the many tutorials at ECLA were structured such that 'the teachers' are forced to do without the façade of superiority, this allows them to show their own commitment to life-long learning. Thus, next to instilling the knowledge they (and other students) have, they have managed to infect me thoroughly with the obsession for studying. Yes, I have been turned into a proper bookworm. And I am still grateful for that.