AI* of the month September: Jasper Schuddeboom!
Mon, 10 Oct 2022
written by Spence van Asperdt
Alright, I’ve got Jasper here for his AI* star interview. Congrats on becoming AI*! Can you introduce yourself for us please?
Yeah! Thanks. I’m Jasper. Jasper Schuddeboom; One of two; I’m turning 21, by the end of this week; I’m an AI student, second years; Chair of the DAtA since recently; I like to play piano and play games and that’s about it haha.
Cool, cool. Congrats in advance as you’re turning 21. How do you feel about that?
Pfft. I’m not really sure actually. I have family in Australia that was like : “Oh you’re turning 21! That’s such a big number!” and I was like “uh, I’ve been drinking since I was 16…”
Oh god haha, does Australia have like an age limit?
Yeah, 21, that’s why they were like “oh, this is really big for you! You’re legal!” And I’m like “How do you mean? It’s not a big deal. I’m just getting older…”
We had a chuckle about getting wrinkles and premature drinking before we continued.
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How do you feel about becoming the first AI* of your cohort?
I was very surprised to be AI star when they announced it. While announcing it, I tapped on Johan’s shoulder and I was like “It’s gonna be Hein”. And then Carmen said that it’s the chair of the DAtA and I was like “Oh shit, it’s me”.
So being the first of my cohort, yeah, I haven’t really processed it yet. I guess it’s bragging rights.
It’s not bragging, you did stuff, people appreciated it and now you’re AI*
Yeah, I just really did not expect it. I read an interview like very shortly before that and there were some questions and I thought to myself that I need to keep track of all activities this year, in case I become AI* next year and less than a week after I became AI*. So I was like “oh damn”.
So do you feel prepared now for this interview?
Marginally. I know some of the answers I want to give, but I’ll mostly free ball it a little.
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Of course you were part of the 1C!! What motivated you to become an active member?
The main thing that motivated me to become an active member was, right off the bat, the intro week. We already decided with half of our group that we wanted to be mentors and then we started asking our parents Kim, Carmen and Cora about what committees are like and what you do.
Ah right! Carmen told me about that one afterparty where you all got together and they went through all the committees to get you hyped for CognAC.
Yeah exactly. I already knew that I wanted to join stuff and then Cora told me about the DAtA and I thought it sounded sick. Apparently this committee is super cursed, I want to join. And I was just hyped to do something. Because CognAC was already a lot of fun during the orientation week so I figured I wanted to be part of that. And then I joined the 1C as well, as I wanted to get some more experience. Some training wheels, so to say. That seemed like a smart decision to join.
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How does it feel to be part of the iconic Jasper duo? Both of you were secretaries, how did that happen?
During the first meeting of the 1C, when the roles are divided. Hein immediately got up for chair and I was like “Damn, you got some balls”. Then we got to the secretary and I wanted to do it, and Jasper also wanted to do that. And then we figured that we’re the same person anyways so we might as well share it. So we alternated the minutes and never disclosed who actually made it. We just sign off with “Jasper” and then not say who made them.
It's been very fun meeting someone with the same name. Because at first we joked about having the same name, but then we saw that we’re super on the same wavelength so we also paired up for programming and we work very well together. It’s been really nice.
Do you also sign off your programming assignment with just “Jasper”?
I think we signed those off with Jasper squared (Jasper2). Olivier would always, when he marked our Frequentist Statistics assignments, mark our assignments with Jasper squared.
Hahaha, that’s good. Have you ever met another Jasper before? Or was this a first time experience?
I’ve met only a few. There was one in my primary school. But he was like a few years up so I didn’t really talk to him. There was a third one in our cohort but he quit. Jasper and I never met him, we looked for him during orientation week and asked his intro parents where he was. They told us that he’s almost never here, so we just decided that he is not part of the gang.
It’s a lot of fun because a surprising amount of older years will meet us and say “you’re the Jaspers” and then we go like “yeahhhh, yeah we are”.
Hahaha are you guys considering getting t-shirts or something soon?
Haha, we haven’t considered that yet. Though it sounds like a good idea. Like a “I’m with Jasper” shirt and then an arrow pointing to the other Jasper.
We recently found out that one of our friends had us switched around in his contacts so he was like “oh no, other Jasper said this” and then I was like “no, I said that” and then he realised he switched us around in his contacts. It can be confusing. We like to confuse people as well. In Discord, we switch names.
Oh that is criminal, haha, super confusing.
As well as in the DAtA, people asked how we are gonna differentiate between us two, and we just said that we won’t. We will not respond to numbers. They just have to accept it. And then Jelle was like “that sounds like a sick plan. Let’s do that”. We just kind of make it purposely confusing.
I vibe with that idea. It’s kind of your duty as Jaspers to confuse people with that fact.
Yeah of course, one is not better than the other. Using numbers would be really weird.
In CognAC, we stand for equality so I stand by this statement.
Exactly, and if you need one, the one you need will look up. It just so happens to be that the other one will look up too. If you have a group of 4 people, and you need their attention, saying Jasper will already get you 50% of the attention.
Now that’s efficiency.
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And now also chair of the DAtA! With a very successful Back2Skoelkast. Was it stressful, organising your first activity as chair?
It was super stressful. It did not go super well while organising it. Because like 90% of the DAtA was also mentors. No one really had time, so I just told Cora that she had to do the promo and then I kind of did the rest, such as getting the venue. And then we just had the biggest difficulties getting a stock order because the new system is terrible. They have the tosti site now, but only people with a BBB can order there. But they’re getting a new one and they’re adding only a few people so the borrels can continue and no one from CognAC was in the system. Definitely not me, as I don’t have a BBB yet. I was mailing back and forth with the VoorraadC for an entire week before they realized they needed to add Cis to the system so he could order. And then I was like “WE’RE DONE. WE HAVE EVERYTHING” and then the day before it was like “Oh should we get food or something for the evening?” It was chaos.
And then also, there was the frikandellen crisis. We were somehow short 3 or 4 frikandellen on the day itself. We’re not sure why. And people would show up asking for a frikandel and we just didn’t have them, so we had to get more and then as those extra frikandellen arrived, someone else showed up very late that had ordered a frikandel, so we ended up still being short a frikandel. It was just a bit of a frikandellen crisis. The next DAtA meeting we evaluated the Back2Skoelkast and it just said “FRIKANDELLEN CRISIS” largely on the white board.
Understandable. If people don’t get their frikandel on time, they might like riot and stuff. Wouldn’t want that.
I think Niels missed his frikandel and he was like “I want my frikandel…” :’(
Did he end up getting his frikandel?
Yeah he got it.
Happily ever after.
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What’s your favourite CognAC memory?
That’s a hard one. Partly because there are so many good memories and also because my memory is terrible. I think one of my favourite ones now is getting called up front during the intro cantus. Because I had stolen Paul’s mascot right before the cantus and I thought I could bargain with the praesidium with it. And then the praesidium walked up and I thought “Oh shit, it’s Paul…” and while cycling to the cantus I had made a picture of his mascot on the bike saying “Missing something?” as a joke. And then he hadn’t seen it, until the break, when he just yelled “JASPER!” and made eye contact and pointed at me. I thought I was going to die. And then the adje Jesus I got after was just very fun.
Yeah Paul was very serious about the mascot game. He was very passionate about it. Did you ever have an adje Jesus before? Or was this a first time experience?
It wasn’t my first punishment at a cantus, but it was the first time I had that one. And I also made the mistake of wearing my white CognAC shirt. It’s completely ruined. Next merch round I’m just going to buy a black one and a white one, and just have the black one become my cantus shirt. Because you just have to wear CognAC merch at a cantus.
If you’re not, you’re not doing it right.
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If CognAC were to have a slogan, what do you think it should be?
All that comes up in my head now is just cursed stuff haha.
That’s okay! It’ll just be put on the site forever. It’ll only be immortalised. The fun thing is that if you Google my name, one of the top results is my A* interview. That’ll probably happen to you as well!
Well, there’s actually another guy called Jasper Schuddeboom who studies in Delft, so I should be good. As for the slogan, it has to be something with the CognAC cease and desist letter we got. How about:
“S.V. CognAC; we don’t make cognac, but we would like to.”
For those that don’t know, CognAC once got a cease and desist letter for being called CognAC while not actually producing cognac and being located outside of a specific region in France.
It makes sense because I’ve been pitching “CognAC cognac” ever since I got here. If we could sell a blue cognac, that’d be the greatest merch item. We could use food dyes. Everyone’s argument is always that cognac is brown, so adding food dye probably will turn into a poop colour. But I did a test with a darker colour liquor and food dye and it worked! We can make it blue. It is doable. So it would be sick if we were producing cognac.
That would be sick. I’ll be sure to bring it up next board meeting. We’re discussing new merch items now. You might be lucky! Did you hear that Olivier?
Olivier, who’s been quietly sitting in the room the entire time, also agrees with making cognac from now on and we brainstorm a little more about it.
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Of course, CognAC is based in Nijmegen. How do you like Nijmegen? Do you have a room here?
I recently got a room in Nijmegen. I don’t know if I can call it a room though, it’s more like a little garden house in the garden of like an actual house. So I’m just in a little wooden hut, with barely any heating, but it’s very cozy. So it’s a student house with a shed in the garden. My room’s the shed. It’s very cozy.
I…uh…I can imagine. Getting that full nature experience. Spiders and stuff. But if you’re among nature, did you like already find yourself? That tends to happen to people that spend long durations of time in the wild. Who is Jasper Schuddeboom? Or Jasper van Roessel? I don’t know at this point.
I guess I would be both.
But on a more serious note, I think I did grow into my skin a little more last year. Especially because of CognAC. I initially only went to Radboud because one of my high school friends told me to come to Nijmegen. I had only looked at Delft and Eindhoven before. At first I wanted to do Computing Science and my dad told me AI might be something for me. I told him “No, that sounds complicated”. Just like everyone else always says.
Right. AI is something with robots, right?
That sounds hard!! But yeah, then I went to the open day and they had something on ethics as well, and I thought to myself that this is just way cooler than computing science. Because you’re learning about a more varied range of subjects. Part of my motivation was that I wanted to be able to join in on conversations on a wider range of topics at a high school reunion instead of just having to say “I know computers…” and just stare around awkwardly for the rest of the evening.
Nijmegen has been very fun. I haven’t been able to go out as much yet, as I only just got a room. But I’ve been to TKB. I’ve recently been to Abdel.
Wow. Did you have the famous discodel?
No… it was after the CognAC evening and I ended up getting a kapsalon. But yeah Nijmegen is just great and it’s mostly because of CognAC. CognAC is just fun.
I’ll write that down… CognAC …. Equals …. Fun
Exactly. Thanks to CognAC I’ve really been able to grow socially. I’m really not that used to being social and then CognAC, right of the bat, felt like a big family. At some point during the first pre-beestfeest borrel, I had like just joined DAtA, and I got called out “JASPER” and I thought that something broke and I needed to fix something. And then I got there like “What do I need to do?”. And everyone was like “Get in on this group picture!!”
Ahhwww… That’s really touching. You found your crew. That’s always great to hear.
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Is there anything you would like to share with your fellow CognACcies?
Something I want to share…hmm… Always when I’m doing an interview, I realize I’m actually not that interesting haha. I have hobbies but I completely forget about them as I just do school, sleep and CognAC at the moment.
That’s fair. Sleep is important as well. So is school. And CognAC of course.
I’ll just go for : “Come to the pre-beestfeest borrel on October 13th. It’s going to be fun!”
We both secretly and quickly glance at the beestfeest poster in the board room to check if we got the date right and we have a chuckle.
Do you have any shoutouts?
Well obviously I want to shoutout my intro mentors Kim, Carmen and Cora. For immediately putting me into CognAC. I also want to give a shoutout to my friend Thijs and his site nieuwersluisbestaatniet.nl
Sorry…what?
I can give you the backstory for that. There’s an intro kid that chilled at my place during the intro and he told me about where he’s from. A tiny place called Nieuwersluis. You can look it up. Half the population (total : 400 people) is the inhabitants of the women’s prison there. And the place is so badly known that there’s an organisation called “Nieuwersluis Bestaat” and his dad is the treasurer of the organisation. And Thijs being so drunk bought a domain for 16 cents that just exists now and he's going to make the exact same site but just everything is like “No, it doesn’t exist.” and will get a crate of beer from the first year student if the website gets above the actual website on Google. That deserves a shoutout. We’re working on it currently. It just needs clicks.
He deserves that shoutout.
The last shoutouts I want to give is to all my friends in my friend group and my friend whom I’m going to call Soepstengel (you know who you are) that got me to study in Nijmegen.
Thank you so much for this interview Jasper!