‘The first one down is going to be my student-assistant for a year at the department of Urban Geography' said Late professor Ronald van Kempen* after my first lecture of Urban Geography. I was the first down, had an interview, showed my CV and was introduced to all the staff of Human Geography including his wife, who was also working in the department of Human Geography.
There were lots of things that had to be done. I worked for the professor and also for the department of Urban Geography each Wednesday, when he was working from home. Sometimes, when there were more tasks or others in the department needed me, I would work an extra day. My tasks were:
Updating the CV of the late professor*
Printing all articles he worked on
Printing all new articles in the field of housing
Printing materials for the courses he gave
Making PowerPoints for presentations he had to give
Changing corrections that were on paper in articles that had to be handed in for review
Changing corrections for his PhD-students in their dissertation or articles
Making an archive of all the articles in the housing research field. This was a big task and took me all summer to finish this in alfabetical order.
About a half year into this job I started my first real job for 3 days a week at E-Quality, besides the master Urban Geography and this job (UPDATE: Sept 2024: student debt €0 euro).
*Professor Ronald van Kempen died in 2016.
** I worked at E-Quality from 2005 - 2007. E-Quality merged and became Atria in 2012.