My end of year reflections

After preparing for over two years, my wife Sandra and I had a four months' sabbatical. On 1 April we left home for the south of Spain in our completely modified Subaru Forester 4WD, with a 2" liftkit, all terrain tyres, raised air inlet (aka snorkel), a roof top tent and a tent trailer. For 3 months we travelled through Spain, gradually finding our way back north with the rising temperatures.

We spend a lot of time in beautiful Andalucia: a week in Cabo de Gata, two weeks in the Sierra Nevada, where we fell in love with the Alpujaras, two weeks on the coast near Malaga and Cádiz, and a few days in and near Córdoba. On and off we drove various offroad routes in the mountains and through the Gorafe desert.

Next on our trip we went to Caba?eros National Park, a.k.a. the Spanish Serengeti, followed by a week halfway Toledo and Madrid to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with our two daughters. The torrential rains that hit the middle of Spain made us skip our visit to the Extremadura and some parks south of Salamanca and drove us north to Asturias and the Picos de Europa, where we were able to drive some really awesome offroad routes as well. What a beautiful part of Spain: lovely beaches and very rugged mountains.

After two great weeks we drove north into the French Basque country and then to ?le d'Oleron and Sainte-Mère-Eglise and Utah Beach in Normandy, where we met a true superhero: Steve Melnikoff, a 104 year old WWII veteran, before going home.?

What an amazingly beautiful country Spain is. It truly has everything under the sun: sea, sun, sand and even snow and of course great cities! And what a brilliant trip and time this has been for the both of us. A second honeymoon with lots of time for relaxation in which we lost almost all concept of time.

But it was also a time of reflection:?I needed a new challenge. So, I sat down with Edwin van Rest , talked to many people in my network, had a few interviews, but in the end decided that the grass is not greener on the other side:

• Since the start of the Analytics and Consulting Team at Studyportals I have been working with a great bunch of people. This year alone we welcomed six new colleagues and had to say goodbye to two of them, unfortunately.
• The team is made up of people from Lebanon, Russia, Lithuania, Malta, Italy the UK, Denmark, Australia and even some from the Netherlands. And this diversity is very nice and enriching.
• We launched 3 new dashboard modules: the Origin Country Indicators Module (which gives insights into demographic and economic indicators), the Global Student Mobility Module (providing student mobility trends) and the Tuition Fee module (which offers an extensive analysis of the relationship between programme tuition fees and global student demand).
• In 2023 we have worked with over 100 clients who rate the quality of the work we do as very high, given the average score of 9.2 out of 10 and a Net Promotor Score of 80!
• But, of course we cannot do all of this alone. We are supported by a great team of Superheroes at Studyportals.

So, I have wholeheartedly decided to stay at Studyportals where I will continue to lead the Analytics and Consulting Team and will be leading an internal project across different departments (more on that later in 2024). Besides, I have signed up for a post-graduate course on Governance at Maastricht University. So, I truly look forward to 2024!!!

To end this reflection I would like to thank some people for the person they are, the great work they do and for being great friends and (former) colleagues.

Thank you Laurens Vehmeijer , Anastasiia P. , Ameena Ali , Karl Baldacchino , Jacopo Gutterer , Archie Pollock , Kirsten L. Feddersen , Rachel Zhao , Victoria Hobdale , Mykolas Kna?ys , Robert Lintzen , Katie Schweitzer , Damaris Clark , Ankita Vishwakarma , Edwin van Rest , Jennifer Bruce , Peter Barnes , Eefje van Breemen , Caroline Souvestre , Rob Jansen , Steven Mulligan , Julian Longbottom (IEAA-F) , Joran van Aart , Tim Rogers , Preben Sperling , David Pilsbury , Professor Manuel Frutos-Perez PFHEA , Roos Hogenkamp , Veronique van Cruchten , Carmen Neghina , Meltem Oktay , Fran?ois Eijgelshoven , Bertrand Laborde , Markus Badde , Mathias Falkenstein Sandra Van Vugt-Veul , Yerba V. , Isa van Vugt .

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

#sabbatical #roadtrip #spain #familylife #family #travel #offroad #thoisyoverlandadventures #actingoninsights #happyholidays

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