Elisa Waijers

As any good philosophy student would, Elisa Waijers starts her motivation letter with a question: what makes someone an excellent student? She then tries to answer this question – fortunately applying the criteria indicated by the GUF.
This was an interesting exercise which she concludes at the end of her letter, stating that answering this question may be less relevant to her because there is so much more in life than ‘excellence’.
We will revisit the latter later, but first we will explain why, despite the strong competition, Elisa was chosen as the winner of the GUF-100 award. First of all, she is a student who has completed two, very different programmes. First, she completed the Bachelor’s degree programme in Psychology, followed by the Bachelor’s degree programme in Philosophy of a Specific Discipline (graduated cum laude). Next, she moved on to the Master's degree programme in Clinical Psychology (almost finished, looking to graduate cum laude) and the Research Master's degree programme in Philosophy (average mark so far: 8.9 out of 10).
Fair to say, these are excellent results. But there is more, as is mentioned in the very enthusiastic letter of recommendation supplied by her supervisor, Prof. Martin Lenz. Besides her work as a student assistant and mentor, Elisa is also a socially very involved student, as demonstrated by her work for various voluntary work organizations, such as the Netherlands Refugee Work and ‘Horses for Orphans’ (an organization that helps orphans in Brazil). She is also active in her current community - the student house where she lives - and the neighbourhood.
So, yes, there is more to life than just the talent to excel academically. Each person must determine where their greatest talent lies; they will have to develop and use it further, not just for themselves, but also for others.
According to the jury, Elisa has done excellent as far as her talent development to date is concerned and, as she says in her letter, she can be rightfully proud of herself.