Meet the board!

Around the start of every new study year a new group of people take over being the board of E.T.S.V. Scintilla. This year the five of us were officially charged as the 94th board on the 5th of September. In this article we will all tell you about what we do, what we’ve done, and some fun facts and hobbies so you can get to know us a bit better.

Jelte Martens, President and STORES Administrator

My name is Jelte Martens and I’m currently a 4th year Electrical Engineering student here in Enschede. This year I won’t be studying much however as I’ll be doing a board year as President and STORES Administrator. What this exactly means and how I ended up here I will explain in this article.

Originally, I am from Bennekom, which is a village in between Ede and Wageningen. Although the Wageningen University campus was only a 5-minute walk from my house I decided to go all study the way to the far east, in Twente. Being almost a 2 hour train journey from home I decided to go live in Enschede and found a student house on campus. My two favourite housemates there are Booker and Toeffels, our cats. Booker is a large orange tomcat, like Garfield, but a bit more stupid and Toeffels is a small black hyperactive cat. Together they are equal parts annoying and cute. When I’m not petting my cats, I fill my time watching a lot of movies and series with my roommates. When I’m feeling a bit more active I do some jogging and I just started out with rock climbing at the TSAC, which I really enjoy.

When I first came to the UT I didn’t come to study Electrical Engineering. I started out studying Advanced Technology for a year and although I enjoyed parts of it, I discovered that not all of it was for me. When corona came in halfway through the year I decided to start again with a different study the next year. Since I had enjoyed some EE subjects during my time at AT I went to study Electrical Engineering. It’s a good thing I did because I really enjoyed my time at EE and quickly became active at Scintilla in the Sjaarscie. This activism continued and I joined the SCALA to organize some fun activities and the SKIC to organize the Kick-In camp.

To cap off this activism I decided to do a board year and ended up as both the President and the STORES Administrator. As president I’ll mostly have a bunch of incidental things to do, as well as the final responsibility for a lot of things, which takes some getting used to. Luckily, I can always fall back on my function as STORES admin and just dive into some finances. All in all, I’m excited to start this board year, and hope to see you either at the STORES, the SK or just around.

Alfonso Capitano, Secretary and Commissioner of Educational Affairs

Hello everyone, I’m Alfonso Capitano, and I’m navigating an exciting phase of my academic journey. I hope to earn my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering next year and am currently in my fourth year of studies. This academic year holds something special for me as I’ll be doing a part-time board year at Scintilla as the Secretary and Commissioner of Educational Affairs.

I come from Zutphen, one of the historical Hanze-cities in the Netherlands. It’s a charming place with a lot of cool medieval architecture in the city centre. Much of my early years revolved around playing games; which I still enjoy. I’m currently playing a lot of Factorio and Baldur’s Gate 3, (but I’m secretly waiting for the DLC of Elden Ring to come out so I can enjoy Miyazaki’s new poison swamp level). These days, you’ll often find me at the Scintilla Room. Here, I strive to study, but mostly I am here just drinking coffee and exhibiting study avoidant behaviour.

Beyond studying, I developed a passion for playing and finding new musical instruments to try out. At the moment, my top three would be: drums, flute, guitar; (but this is subject to change over the years). I even had the opportunity to join a few bands and orchestras with different instruments. Additionally, I’m captivated by diverse cultures and travelling. Amidst the busy schedule of a board year, I make it a point to explore new places whenever I can. My journey into Electrical Engineering was not a natural progression; I came to the open days for Biomedical Engineering and somehow stuck around for EE. Mostly because it seemed more interesting to me being able to make things on my own (instead of having other people make it for me). Like many others, I had to relocate for my studies and chose Enschede as my new home.

During my third year, I got involved with a committee called SHOCK (Scintilla’s HObby Commissie voor Knutselaars, EN: Scintilla’s hobby committee for tinkerers). There were a lot of interesting projects there and I liked this a lot. Later on in the year joined Scintilla’s Kick in Committee (SKIC), relishing the experiences they offered. My journey ultimately led me to a board member position, where I am now. Whether you encounter me at the Scintilla Room, or simply around campus, please feel free to ask me stuff or just go for a chat! I’m eager to connect and share experiences on this unique journey we’re all a part of!

Menno Dijkstra, Treasurer

Hello, my name is Menno Dijkstra. Somehow, on the 5th of September, I became the treasurer of Scintilla. In this small story I will tell something about myself and how I got to this point. I was born in the time of the year the romans did not deem worthy of a proper name (February*) and raised in the same town as where Egbert Douwes founded Douwe Egberts (de Jouwer).

Being given birth here in the Netherlands means that at some point you go to primary school. Here it was obvious that I had some nerd level passion and talent for math. During my time at high school, I discovered that just math was a bit plain. Applying math was a bit more interesting. Open days told me that the study applied mathematics was too little applied and too much mathematics for my liking. So, I went to a twice applied mathematics study like electrical engineering. But before I could go to university, I needed to finish high school, and because of some pandemic related circumstances, I became one of those loafers that never did the high school central end exam and just graduated.

After high school, I went straight to the University of Twente. Why, you might wonder. Well, it was the closest to my hometown, a reason I would praise for the coming half a year. Unlike most people, I was a goober by not hardcore searching for place to dwell around Enschede. It would not matter anyways because high-school-central-end-exam canceller made everything go online. I could just attend all lectures from anywhere I wanted and the place I attended most online lectures was of course: in Educafé on campus. It took me two and half hours to get there and the same time to get back.

Still living in de Jouwer didn’t stop me from joining my first committee within Scintilla. It all started during the Kick-In with my do-group parents convincing me to join Sjaarscie. At the end of my first year, someone els… euh I mean, I signed up for SCALA. After the summer break, I got tricked into doing Scintilla’s Kick-In Committee. It took another year before I found myself in a completely different universe with a certain piece financial accounting software. This software being of course: Multivers, which did not crash once, not twice, but thrice on the first day of using it. Even though Multivers is not always working properly, it is not irritating, unlike Microsoft Teams. Also, with three years of electrical engineering study, I am used to software with similar behaviour.

See you in the Scintilla room, in between the windows messages of Multivers is not responding.

*January did also not deserve a real name. The Romans just referred to these two months as the dull, dead, or miserable time, or something similar. As long as you did not acknowledge it was actual proper time.

Sjouke Spijkerman, Commissioner of External Affairs and Vice President

Hello everyone! My name is Sjouke Spijkerman. In July I finished my bachelor EE and now I am in my fourth year of studies. This year, however, I am not planning to do a lot of studying. At the last GMA, I was charged with the functions of Commissioner of External Affairs and Vice President. This means that I will be responsible full-time for all contact with external parties this academic year and to a lesser extent will be assisting Jelte.

21 years ago, it all started for me in this small town called Kollum, which is located in Friesland, The Netherlands. Here I lived with my sister, 3 brothers, and of course my parents. In this area, I went to primary school and later high school. In high school, I discovered that I was interested in many things.

Regarding sports, I used to play a lot of table tennis. For this, I would give training and I would also play matches every weekend. Also, I would go cycling regularly, which I still do sometimes. At the moment, however, I am merely going to the gym. In school I found out about many hobbies of mine. In music class, I found out that I loved playing instruments, which resulted in me learning keys and playing in a few bands at the time. Most of all, however, I found out about a hobby I still practice a lot today: learning languages and their cultures. Whenever I find a spot between all the work of a board year, I try to practice many languages. Thus, in case you’re a speaker of any language, make sure to say hi to me!

Although languages intrigued me a lot, I was hooked a lot by many other subjects as well. With all these diverse interests, picking a major was not an easy decision. Back at home, I’d often catch my dad tinkering with electronics, which interested me. Plus, I always enjoyed applying math to real-world situations. That’s when I figured Electrical Engineering was the study for me, and I haven’t thought differently since.

As my hometown is 3 hours from here by public transport, I had to move to Enschede. In 2020, when I started studying here, a lockdown was ongoing. Luckily it was still possible for me to get to know some people during the kick-in and later on in a small study group I had where I met many of my peers, whom I eventually would spend all my studies with. Due to the pandemic, I decided to not become active in the first year. In the second year, however, I decided to become part of SCALA and the Gala committee, which I both enjoyed a lot. In the first semester of the third year, I went to Kraków, Poland for my minor. Although the courses did not teach me a lot, I learned a lot about myself. This also made me see that there is so much more to learn than only the things we study! At the end of this semester abroad, I was hyped to start activism at Scintilla again. This resulted in me joining the LEX which I am also CCP of now. And of course, I decided to apply for candidate board member, which eventually resulted in me becoming board member and you reading this piece of the article ;).

Hope to see you around!

Esra Schilderinck, Commissioner of Internal Affairs

If I may say so myself, last but not least: the Commissioner of Internal Affairs. Hey everyone! I’m Esra Schilderinck, 21 years old, 4th year student. I will be your go-to person for membership, committee, and activity related questions. I also do the general planning and when you message Scintilla on WhatsApp you will be talking to me too.

In 1988 in the tiny village of Beltrum, the Dutch flavour of the survival run sport was born. 13 years later, I was too. Ever since I was five years old, I wanted to do this sport: the running, the climbing, the swimming… All of it looked so cool. Unfortunately, when I was finally old enough to join, my talent of being terrible at every sport ever was already well known. Instead, I got into drawing, which I still do, and playing the flute, which I don’t. My un-athleticism is so great that I developed a shoulder injury in 2018 (which I’m still dealing with) due to holding my flute slightly wrong for nine years. Yeah.

When it was time to choose a high school, it came as a total surprise to me that I could go to the pre-university level (gymnasium in Dutch). This is typical for my lack of self-knowledge at the time. I proceeded to make more grand decisions such as doing all four profiles of high school since I didn’t know what I wanted to study later. I didn’t take extra math though because I was certain about one thing: I wasn’t going to do anything technical. However, when it was time to pick a study, Electrical Engineering had the best job prospects out of my 5 top choices, so here I am.

I graduated high school in 2019, after which I did a gap year. I went to the USA to go to high school there. It was surprisingly a lot like the movies, at least until COVID hit. I recommend a year abroad to everyone; you really grow as a person in my experience. I started studying EE in 2020 during Corona, but that didn’t stop me from becoming active within Scintilla and meeting new people. At the end of the year, I had joined the committees Sjaarscie, de Borrel, and SCALA. I also tried some new hobbies such as collecting 100+ plants, playing the tin whistle, trying new teas (while half of the time over steeping them since I forgot I made tea), etc. In my second and third year I joined (and left) some more committees, like STUDI, SKIC, and the EE women’s sorority Stellae. Due to joining committees and going to the activities, I really found a home in Scintilla. This all accumulated in me doing a board year now as the Commissioner of Internal Affairs.

Due to ongoing medical reasons since 2021, I still have a lot of subjects I need to pass to finish my bachelor. Therefore, I will be following some courses next to being a board member as far as my health will let me. So maybe I will see you in class! If not, I hope to see you during one of our activities. Have a great year and see you around!