By Emma de Koning
So can you imagine? Starting uni at sixteen? My guess is, you’re quite amazed at this moment. Most people are. But, believe me, it’s really not as cool as it sounds. You could even say it sucks. Honestly, people saying: “You must be so smart!” and the accompanying surprise on their faces are very, very annoying.
I’m a minor, while all of you (with very few exceptions) are adults. That means I can’t drink, can’t sign any contracts, can’t buy a plane ticket, or rent a hotel room. Which is a bummer when you see all your friends going off on holidays on their own. During introweek, I almost didn’t get into De Spot because the bouncer didn’t understand why I would want to be there if I couldn’t drink anyway. It also means that it was up to my parents to decide that I would not be let to study abroad (and England isn’t even that far).
But those things are only annoyances. What bothers me most is the way other people react to me. When they find out my age, they start treating me as some sort of wunderkind. But I’m not. I’m just me, even though I happen to be a bit younger than your average university student. I really don’t have any power over my age, duh, and it’s frustrating when people judge you on that rather than on things you do have an influence over, such as your kindness or your dreams.
“But then why didn’t you take a gap year, and then the age difference wouldn’t have been so big?” Believe me, I would have loved to. But again, that’s pretty much impossible at my age. I couldn’t go travelling, because minors have a hard time going anywhere without parents. Hell, I found out over break that, in France, they won’t even let unaccompanied minors into a museum. Neither could I work and earn money for a year, because minors are not allowed to work that much, and I wouldn’t have earned a lot anyway, because the minimum wage for sixteen-year-olds is not that high. In the end, I didn’t have much choice other than going on to university (and I like university, so that is no problem at all).
But university as a minor is also hard. Insurances? Rent? Contracts? Not for minors. How does it work with student loans (which are from the government in the Netherlands)? Will my parents still get child support? No one who can tell you. When arranging everything for university, I felt as if I already missed some sort of checklist which told me what had to be done when and where. But I what I really missed a website or a document or anything saying how things worked for minors.
Then I got to university, and if I’m being very honest, I’ll admit that I planned to keep my age “secret”. Not because I am ashamed, but just because it’s too bothersome. So then why on earth am I writing this? Well, keeping secrets like that doesn’t work. One person finds out, and then all of a sudden everyone knows. Apparently I’m really interesting gossip. Which is exactly why I’m writing this. None of you would guess if you talked to me or saw me walking down the street, but as soon as you find out that I’m only sixteen, you’ll start treating me just a bit differently. And that really sucks. Because I didn’t change, it’s your perception of me that did. So I’m telling you, if you meet me, if you talk to me, ignore my age. Don’t ask me how I got here, because that question has been asked a hundred times already. Just think of me as Emma, and not as a sixteen-year-old. Does my age really make me so different?
Emma de Koning, Class of 2020, just started her first semester and will probably major in Antiquity. She’s from Zuidland, the Netherlands.
