25 years of Nekst

This year, we are celebrating the twenty-fifth birthday of Nekst magazine. The magazine you are reading today has an extensive history: the predecessor of Nekst was published back in 1978! This academic year, we will have several articles highlighting this history.

Firstly, and perhaps most noticeably, we introduce the special returning theme “Archived”, for which we will crawl through the archives of Nekst to dig up and dust off the nicest jewels Nekst has to offer, so that you may enjoy the finest pieces of penmanship once more. These articles may date back to the time that Nekst was published in Dutch; we have decided that we will not be translating them as more often than not this would only detract from the literary prowess of the original article. Alongside this new theme, we will break down a little piece of Nekst’s history every edition. This edition, we will start at the very beginning.

De Cirkel

In November 1978, the first edition of a still unnamed magazine was published.  Admittedly, it was more like a newsletter at the time; it consisted of just four pages and contained mainly announcements and exam statistics. Moreover, it was not even an official TEV (the predecessor of Asset | Econometrics) magazine yet! By the time the second edition was released, a name had been chosen, namely “De Cirkel”. In this edition, the goal of the magazine is also formulated: “The purpose of the magazine is to give a wider knowledge about educational and managerial issues that take place with the sub-faculty.”

In the second volume of De Cirkel, TEV was introduced to the students: “Although Econometrics students form a close group, the number of activities in this group during the last half year has decreased to a worrying level, (…). Therefore, four Econometrics students got together and concluded that the foundation of a sub-faculty association would be a good idea.” From the third volume onward, each volume featured an edition that was dedicated to the upcoming freshmen, as well as an annually returning puzzle. The remaining three editions that were published each year were made for all econometrics students.

Piece by piece, the magazine started to contain more and more returning articles. In just two short years, it grew from four to twenty-eight pages. Slowly but surely, it started to take the form it has nowadays; reports about day trips to companies and articles about econometrics-related subjects were published. Moreover, the very first Quatsch was published around this time! Bob Kaper’s “Relations are more important than functions.” formed the fundament of a long-lasting tradition. Moreover, the first real interview with a student was held; it resembled the current Living in Lodges and The Passion of … sections.

De Cirkel did experience some hard times. For example in 1983, when Mr. Deetman, then Minister of Education, proposed to disincorporate the study Econometrics at the universities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Tilburg. If the study would disappear, De Cirkel would disappear with it. As such, the final edition of the fifth volume was made as a memoriam. Fortunately for both us and the Cirkel-writers at the time, minister Deetman’s plans did not pass. Because of the relief, the cover of the following edition contains the image of a phoenix, which represents the rebirth of De Cirkel.

The next edition of Nekst will feature the next chapter in this thrilling story: the Tristichon years!