After high school, Jeffrey Pijpers decided to travel the world first. Central America became his destination. He learned Spanish and immersed himself in the region's culture. Back in the Netherlands, inspired by his experiences, he chose Latin American studies in Leiden, with the idea of one day doing research in academia. He combined his master's and PhD research with music, analysing song lyrics as if they were literature. He investigated how musicians in Brazil and Cuba anticipated military dictatorships and how they dealt with censorship.
Jeffrey's search for a permanent position as a researcher proved difficult and uncertain. So he opted for a four-day working week in cybersecurity and worked on his research on the remaining three weekdays for six years. And then came corona. From then on, Jeffrey's work took place mainly behind screens and he fell out with burnout. He decided to rethink his career and made a wish list for a future job: on one was that Jeffrey liked working with people in groups, language was obviously an important aspect, he was looking for a job with variety and humour had to be able to have a central place. ‘Those are the things I love. I love improvisation, always doing the same thing is not my thing. For a class of 25 to 30 children, you can't do the same trick twice either. I was really fed up with the consultancy world after six years. Mainly because you first have to go through ten layers of façade before you get to the people themselves. And yes, teenagers are sometimes insufferable, but the contact is always real.’
‘At first, it felt quite a bit unusual to take such a step. That after six years of blocks on a doctoral degree and a rather shining career in consultancy, you choose teaching. At the time, I also thought that teaching did not pay very well. Through a college friend, I came into contact with the school principal of Regius College in Schagen. The school, the people, the way they thought about how to prevent an income drop, these were the push I needed to make my choice. I decided to take a side-entry course at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and become a Dutch language teacher. Although Spanish might sound more logical, I realised fairly quickly that in Dutch I could also use my academic experiences and previous work experiences to inspire students and make lessons lively. After all, students already speak the language.’
Jeffreys does not hide his enthusiasm. ‘Teaching really suits who I am. In fact, looking back, I would have walked the same path again. My experiences from other worlds bring extra perspective. It makes me a different type of teacher than I would have been if I had chosen teaching straight from vwo.’ His tip to future lateral entrants: when choosing a course, look carefully at the level of guidance as well as the type of teacher. I benefited enormously from the small groups in which I was taught and the seasoned nature of my teachers. Thanks to that support, I was able to develop optimally‘.’