My Education - Part 2

I started looking for a suitable major and decided to try "Translating and Interpreting", a 4 year course with led to a "Licentiate Degree" but is now called "Master in Translation".

Initially I wanted to take a language that was not so popular. Danish for example. But a few days before giving my final decision, the Danish government fell and I didn't liked the language so much. I know it is silly taking such a decision without first checking out the languages, but that's what happened: I decided to go for Italian and English. An good choice, because the College provided me with an excellent background, not only in languages but in many other subjects.

When I first started there, the school was called "Hoger RijksInstituut voor Vertalers en Tolken", later it became "RVT" and now it is called Erasmushogeschool

I will write more later, but after 4 years (1983-1987) I graduated with a dissertation about "Cocaine: Influences on the brain, a translation with glossary".

My Education - Part 1

Saki, the Scottish writer, once said the following about education : "But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school."

Education is something that has been running through my life like a thick red line. I have 2 websites dedicated to constant learning (Levenslangleren.be in Dutch and Levenslangleren.info in English), I try constantly to learn new things and have been to quite a lot of schools and taken numerous courses.

Here a short overview of my past academic failures and accomplishments:

- Kindergarten : The memories are a bit vague, but I do remember some parts of it. I went to the "Kleuterschool Het Prinsenhof" in Grimbergen, from the ages of 3 till 6. We are talking about the period from 1970 till 1973.
- Primary Education was from 1974 till 1981, at the "Basisschool Het Prinsenhof" in Grimbergen. It was quite a happy time, and i have some fond memories of going to school there. My first teacher was Juffrouw De Wit, and other teachers that I will remember are Meester Siccard, Meester Mergaerts en Meester Van Den Block. Yes, we all call our teachers "Masters" :)
- Secondary Education was from 1981 till 1987 at the Sint-Joris Instituut in Brussels. A catholic all-boys' school with a good reputation and not as strict as the nearby Sint-Jan Berchmans (which produced some of our worst racist politician). I first took Latin, but later went on to take Modern Languages with as little mathematics as possible.
I have only fond memories of this school, even if there were some bullies and my school results were not always as good as I would have liked them to be.

I do remember taking Typing lessons (while waiting for my dad who worked in the neighbourhood) and getting great marks (i'm typing this quite fast).

At the end of the final year I took a PMS test (Psycho-Medical-Social centre) which stated I would probably not accomplish a lot at university.

But I passed my maturity test (which is something resembling A-levels) and went on to go to university. For those interested: my maturity thesis was in English: "The History of Cinema"