What sets Generation Z apart from other generations? What drives today’s youth, and what keeps them awake at night? No one can tell us better than Gen Z themselves. That's why we are portraying 24 students from Radboud University. In this episode: Savanne Maas, 26, English Language and Culture, lives with type 1 diabetes.

‘In June 2021, the summer before I started studying, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The problem with getting diabetes when you’re in your twenties is that you know what it’s like to live without it. I had to re-learn a lot of things, how to eat – how to do arithmetic! I’m terrible at arithmetic, but now my life depends on it.

You need to calculate not only the micronutrients in your food, but also everything around it. Should I go for a walk after dinner? What’s the temperature like? Do I have another appointment? It’s a kind of ongoing medical experiment. I could do and eat exactly the same things today as yesterday, and still end up with different blood sugar levels.

Once my blood sugar dropped during a lecture, and I fainted. I think I traumatised a roomful of first-year students, as well as my poor lecturer. When I woke up, there were all these people standing around me and I thought: “Wow! This is my life now.”

In Nijmegen, I’m a member of Underground Theatre. I’ve always loved acting. There is a moment when you enter on stage, and you really become the character. I love the freedom it gives me. You can be anyone, and at the end of a play, you just step out of your role.

Since the diabetes, I do feel more anxious about being on stage. I’m terrified of getting a hypo or acting kind of drunk and ruining the show for everyone.’