Social event 2015

Fifty PhD students of our faculty attended the PhD social event organized by the Aerospace Engineering Graduate School and the PhD board on the 23rd of September.

The PhDs set out for a day full of activities at Adventure Vlaardingen, where the students went through an obstacle course which required them to climb, balance, crawl, paddle, and even wade through water and mud. 

One of the highlights was certainly archery, where everyone had the chance to test their aiming accuracy. Due to heavy rain in the morning hours, everyone was really concerned what the weather would bring in the afternoon, but luckily the main source of wet clothing was the water under the obstacles rather than rain from above.  At the end of the activities the survival guide pointed out that PhD students should be more active and spend less time behind their computers, a painful observation… However painful this comment was, the barbeque that followed definitely made us forget about it.

After 2.5 hours all groups succeeded in finishing the obstacle course and got the opportunity to change back into clean and dry cloth and having a quick shower. Here, the benefits of being a female engineer showed once again, as the 5 attending girls had a changing room all to themselves, while the 45 attending boys had to cramp in a changing room of the same size and fight for the shower. 

As already alluded to, soon after, the BBQ was lit and a tasty dinner was served to the hungry PhDs. During and after dinner there was plenty of time to make new friends amongst the PhDs from other departments while enjoying the (finally) nice weather and having some drinks. All in all it was a very successful day and all PhDs present complimented the Graduate School for arranging this amazing day.