How chemist Marc Tijhuis left business

Halfway through his career alumnus Marc Tijhuis made a radical change: he left the corporate world to join the global battle against waste with the International Solid Waste Association. He feels a bit nostalgic, he says, as he cycles through a buzzing Leiden and sees an endless procession of groups of first-year students getting to know each other and the city. His student life took a bit longer to get going, he says at a pavement café on Rapenburg canal. 'I only joined an association in my third year, Quintus, because I hung around in the alternative scene in my hometown of Rotterdam for a while - with black eyeliner under my eyes. That disappeared in Leiden,' he laughs. His parents were initially a bit sceptical about him choosing a tough university degree. 'I was a C student at school.