A tale of two Universities

Welcome to the first ever post for 'A tale of two Universities'. Sandra and I have talked about starting a blog together for a very long time and it is now here! The way this will work is that both of us will post individual posts, about our work and interests whilst we will also aim to capture some of our more fascinating discussions in joint posts and where feasible we will invite colleagues to contribute as well. This post is both an introduction to me, and to a concept I want to challenge, that of an 'academic'. My full name is Dr. Timotheüs Ruurd Zijlstra - commonly referred to as Tim . I frequently refer to myself as the accidental academic and that is what I'd like this first post to be about whilst doubling as an introduction to my academic journey. After partying too hard and failing miserably twice at obtaining an undergraduate degree, I qualified from a 'vocational University' and worked as a 'locum' for the provincial public library