December 19; Back to my Wisconsin stomping grounds 🇺🇸

A stopover in the friendly part of America to reconnect with my academic roots... this was my week 😇

Happy Sunday,

I’m back in Europe at last, right on time for all the Christmas magic and festivities that are in store first in Sofia, and then with Ellie’s family in Shumen, and the New Year’s ski trip that we’re finally doing again after a two-year hiatus, for reasons that need no explanation.

It was unusually warm for December in Chicago this week (upper 50s as they say in the US), and I took out a bike and cycled 10 miles through the Loop and Lincoln Park, capturing this beautiful view of Chicago River from the Columbus Drive Bridge.

This last week though had a very sweet few days to remember, as I made a stop in Chicago and Wisconsin, on my way back from California to Europe.

Chicago is a love of its own, hands-down my favorite city in the US. With stunning skyscrapers, from the first iconic towers built in the 1920s, to the Willis Tower and the Lakeshore East neighborhood, which is probably the most beautiful ensemble of skyscrapers that I know of. Its big and spacious avenues, moderate congestion, friendly prices, proper four seasons, and that midwestern friendliness make it the best grand American city out there in my book.

Looking out over State Street and the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, from Bascom Hill on campus shortly after sunset

When I’m in Chicago, I always try to sneak out to Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, which is just a little over two hours of driving away, to the northwest along the I-90 transcontinental highway, America’s longest interstate that connects Boston to Seattle (a drive I will definitely do in full one day!).

Bascom Hall of UW-Madison, the university’s main and hallmark building

Madison is a very special place to me. I was fortunate to spend a part of the 2005-2006 academic year there on a Marco Polo scholarship from the European Union, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; an experience that has shaped me profoundly.

Wisconsin State Capitol at night

UW-Madison is considered one of America’s top-30 universities, a member of the informal “public Ivies”, and I remember well how the quality of education blew me away when I was there.

Stopping by the Quarles and Brady reading room at UW-Madison Law School, where I spent many days and nights in the weeks before finals

When I arrived in Madison, I had just completed four years of my combined undergraduate/graduate law degree at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, which is considered one of the best universities in the country, and is by all means a solid European law school. But Madison turned out to be on a totally different level. I selected three courses, most notably International Trade Law, which was an exam that I had managed to fail twice back home in Groningen, and that I got permission to substitute with credits from Wisconsin if I could pass the exam here. Our professor turned out to be Gregory Shaffer, one of the top scholars on international trade, who at the time was seconding for the US Trade Representative at the WTO ministerial meeting round in Hong Kong. He would fly in halfway across the world every two weeks, to teach us and one other class, and after handing out a seating chart to the sixty or so of us students enrolled, he would memorize all the names and backgrounds from the second class onwards.

Sneaked into the classroom where we had International Trade Law classes with professor Shaffer

And then came the exam. Five hours, fully open-book and open-access, where you had to choose three out of ten available essay questions, and write up a legal reasoning for each one. Doing it properly required no more than three hours, and the entire exam was designed so that you could do anything you want, as long as you registered in the beginning and handed in a paper at the end. Browse the internet on your laptop, go to the library, go to the food court, go even to the dorm to crash for an hour and then come back. All was allowed, but still you would never pass it if you not only had not gone through the literature and class notes, but also hadn’t actively participated in the class discussions.

Visiting my guest family “parents” Joanne and Roland, who hosted me in my first week in Madison when I arrived to study here ❤️

When I got my A for that exam, I realized how lucky I was to experience that level of academic excellence. Back home in Groningen this kind of examination would happen sometimes in small elective seminars, but exams for all the major courses, like International Trade, were exercises in memorizing interpretations of clauses and court decisions, with 600 students scrambling to note down multiple-choice answers for 100 questions in three hours. You’d study hard day and night for a week, do the exam, and forget everything the next day. Here in Wisconsin, it was a completely different story.

UW-Madison’s campus living room, the Memorial Union on Lake Mendota

A big part of this formative and maturing experience was due to the fact that I was a 21-year-old European student, who got placed in the UW Law School, a graduate school where most students were 10 years older than me and had already graduated undergrad and worked for 5 years, before starting grad school (and often paying for it themselves).

The stately hallways of the Memorial Union, the building I probably spent most of my time in during my Wisconsin days

Another big part was the campus experience, which is something we don’t really have in Europe, or at least not in Groningen or anywhere else in the Netherlands. A fully immersive environment, where you’re constantly encouraged to join sports, cultural, and leisure activities, discussion clubs, volunteering, and parties, and an overarching humanitarian message that inspired you wherever you went on campus; to become an excellent person and professional, and to be good and do good wherever you went afterwards.

The window with the lights on, right of the balcony, on 505 Conklin Place in Madison, my home when I lived here.

Walking around campus for two days this week, I reveled again in that atmosphere of inclusiveness, ambition, and positive resolve. Even though I had been exposed to the world and culture of academia before Wisconsin, with my dad being a researcher and professor at leading universities in US and Europe, I can feel how Wisconsin shaped my attitudes in work and in life in ways that I don’t even think about on a daily basis. Particularly the skill to publicly state and defend values, and be outspoken about the outcomes that I work towards, is, as simple as it sounds, something that gets challenged a lot in the business world in Europe, and in Eastern Europe in particular, where communicating and acting in a million shades of gray and vagueness is still the norm, both in public and in private.

Thanks to Wisconsin, I not only have a life-long immunity from such attitudes, but also the skills to lead and showcase bigger visions and ideas, which is what has become my bread-and-butter, and the core of the work that gives me joy and life meaning.

A younger me, in Madison in 2005, at Camp Randall stadium on a game day

“On, Wisconsin, forward is our driving spirit”, are the words from the marching anthem of the University of Wisconsin, informally also known as the hymn of the State of Wisconsin. Words that keep inspiring, in ways that were not yet evident on those boozy tailgating Sundays at Camp Randall stadium in 2005, where we’d go to watch our college football team beat Michigan or Iowa, and yell them out loud after each touchdown by the home team.

Me in Madison in 2021. Thanks so much Wisconsin, for everything!

On, Wisconsin. Thanks for what our Memorial Union calls, in its slogan, “Experiences for a Lifetime”. As always, amazing to be back, and I already can’t wait to visit again soon.

Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇

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