T.S.V. 'Jan Pieter Minckelers'

T.S.V. ‘Jan Pieter Minckelers’, or ‘Japie’ in short, is the study association for Chemical Engineering & Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology. It was founded on 6 December 1957 and thus, the association is celebrating its 65^th birthday this year. The association has three pillars, all with the goal help its members. The first one is education. Japie arranges everything that is needed to study successfully, such as books, lab coats and old exams. Besides, it plays an important role in the feedback on education. The coordinator of educational affairs collects feedback on all courses and general affairs and passes this on to the responsible teachers.

Self-development is an important part too and can be split up in two categories. Japie has a lot of committees that organizes a lot of different activities or help the association in a different way. The committee members learn all kind of soft skills, like collaborating, planning and having proper meetings. Besides this, there is also career orientation. Almost every week there is an activity with a company, like lunch lectures and company visits, to help the members finding what they want to do after their study.

Lastly, of course there is also a focus on relaxation. Every Thursday there is a drink for the entire department in the department bar the F.O.R.T. and besides this, there are around 100 activities per year. These range from sporting activities to parties in stratum and from game nights to study trips to other countries. So, Japie offers something for everyone.

You might wonder where Japie’s name is coming from. Jan Pieter Minckelers was a Dutch scientist and professor of physics in Leuven. In 1784 he wrote an essay on inflammable gas produced from coal dust. Later, this was named 'illumination gas'. Firstly, this gas was used as balloon gas. Minckelers used this gas to illuminate his laboratories. Afterwards, the numerous other applications of the gas were discovered, and it was used to illuminate cities. In 1798 he returned to his birthplace Maastricht, where he died in 1816 at the age of 76. In 1904 he got his own statue in Maastricht as a proof of gratitude for his discoveries.