The role of class representative comes naturally to Stas Shchedrovitskaya: ‘The school listens to us’

‘I just came out of quite a gruesome couple of weeks’, says Anastasia Shchedrovitskaya (18) with a touch of drama. “It was the end of course 3, which is one of the most challenging courses in the first 2 years. Ask anyone studying Life Sciences, they’ll understand. I hope I passed.”

‘Course 3’ contains topics like bioinformatics and genetic coding. Both not the kind of topics that Life Science student Stas is interested in the most. “I’m leaning more towards things like enzyme and medical analysis, bacteria and growing fungi cultures”, she says. “I’d like to do research work, and the ideal scenario would be doing field work in the Amazon rainforest. But I’d also like to volunteer for Doctor’s without Borders.”

Stas has an adventurous spirit, which probably stems from her upbringing. She grew up in a large family in a small village in Latvia, where she was always outside. “As kids we ran around barefoot, played in the mud, digging up worms, picking tomatoes… I think it’s where my interest in biology comes from as well.”

She likes to do things her own way. When COVID hit, she decided to leave her high school for an international online school. “I didn’t like the way my old school handled online lessons during COVID. The online high school left the responsibility with myself, which fits me well. Because of that, I finished high school one year early – and it would’ve been two if my parents had let me.”

After high school, Stas decided to come to Nijmegen to study Life Sciences. “I already knew I wanted to go to the Netherlands, and I liked Nijmegen because it’s not too big a city. And from the moment I stepped out of the train here, I knew I made the right choice. I especially like how there are so many people here who share my passion for science.”

The only thing left before coming here, was choosing a school. “I couldn’t decide between Radboud and the HAN, so for that I actually flipped a coin”, she says with a smile. “I’m happy that fate brought me to the HAN.”

It says a lot about Stas’ attitude, which can best be described as open, energetic and curious. “I like to go out and just see what I encounter. It’s how I met the people that are now my best friends here.” It makes her an ideal class representative. A role which she acquired quite naturally. “I simply raised my hand when they asked for volunteers. And everyone seemed to be okay with it.”

As class representative, Stas listens to her fellow students’ issues and tries to address them in the meetings with other representatives. “We also frequently speak with teachers or other employees, like the school’s schedulers. Together we try to improve the way things go at the school.”

Topics that Stas has brought to the meetings are things like the exam structuring and practical info in the introductory curriculums. “The system can be quite complex sometimes, like chemistry and biology grades being complementary to each other. Or teachers telling us different things about the same issue. Communication is often the underlying issue.”

In short, there are always thing that can be improved. “But the good thing is, that at our school the responsible people really listen to the students’ issues. I’ve experienced that already and I like that a lot about this school. Also, if this job would’ve meant fighting against a brick wall, I wouldn’t be doing it.”

SABC takes its student’s opinions very seriously. If there is anything you’d like to address, don’t hesitate to contact your class representative or a member of the School Council at academieraad.atbc@han.nl  

Photo David van Haren