Break Your Loop — Pilot Programme
Five weeks Of Real learning
A student-built space to slow down, understand what is really going on, and take ownership of your own life.
You explore your patterns, try a next step that feels like yours, and build real support with people who are figuring things out too.
Why This Exists
You know what Matters.
Life Doesn't come with
a map.
ProjectU began by listening to more than 100+ students speak honestly about what makes life difficult to navigate: pressure, uncertainty, comparison, negative emotions, feeling stuck, and feeling alone with it.
Students wanted space to understand themselves, take a next step that feels like their own, and have people around them while they figure things out.
ProjectU creates that space.
The world does not only need more support. It needs better ways to learn how to live.
56%
Of student experience high stress
When pressure becomes normal, there is less space to pause, understand what is happening, and choose how to respond.
62%
EXPERIENCE SOME DEGREE OF LONELINESS
A campus can be full of people while honest connection still feels difficult to find.
59%
Report emotional exhaustion
Functioning on the outside does not always mean someone is doing well on the inside.
44%
REPORT ANXIETY OR DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS
Mental wellbeing is shaped by how students navigate pressure, uncertainty, relationships, identity, and everyday life.
35%
Receive no advice or support
Among students with psychological complaints, more than one in three received no advice or support.
56%
Wanted to solve it alone
Among students with psychological complaints who did not receive support, this was the most common reason.
The "Where?" and "Why?"
This is where ProjectU begins. This is also WHY the Programme became necessary and urgent.
A place to understand yourself, take ownership of your own life, learn through real experience, and have people around you while you figure things out.
Note: Dutch higher-education data, 2023: 32, 558 participating HBO and WO students. The final two figures refer specifically to students with psychological complaints who received no support.
The Programme
From listening
to trying together
Students helped us buld the first ProjectU pilot. around real life: pressure, uncertainty, habits, goals, relationships, and the things that are difficult to say out loud.
For five weeks, students chose something meaningful to explore, tried small actions in their own lives, reflected on what happened, shared honestly with others, and adjusted from there.
CHOOSE → TRY → NOTICE → SHARE → ADJUST.
What follows is the first version of that journey.
Each participant brought their own life into the room.
FIVE WEEKS. FIVE PLACES TO PAY ATTENTION.
The pilot offered a shared rhythm for understanding patterns, trying something meaningful, learning with others, and choosing what to carry forward
Start with your life
Begin with an honest picture of where you are: what gives you energy, what drains you, what matters to you, and what has been difficult to name.
Self-Leadership Loop
Recap your week, accept what went good and bad and learn from it, choose what to do next week and commit to it. This is the main loop to practice together with your body.
Buddy Meeting
Here you meet with your body, as always, but not in a group setting but just the two of you, while repeating the self-leadership loop, and building positive evidence together, while accepting what went wrong. Learn from it with your buddy!
HONEST CONVERSATION | PERSPECTIVE | Buddy Support
TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Now what has worked? Choose something different like a small action, recovery practice, conversation, boundary, or experiment that fits your actual life or stay with what has worked so far. Notice what changes and what needs adjusting.
Carry it forward
Recognise what you learned, what worked for you, and what still needs attention. Leave with a next step and support that can continue beyond the programme.
REFLECTION | CONTINUATION | NEXT CHAPTER
We start with a question:
What happens when students get real space to look at their lives, talk honestly, and try something that is actually theirs?
For five weeks, we tested it.
Some students found more clarity. Some changed how they spoke to themselves. Some found support they did not realise they needed. And some showed us exactly what needs to become better in V2.
ProjectU is growing into a year-long journey.
But this is where it started.
MEET THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IT.
Antoni Zborowski
Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence
Q: How do I keep going?
A: Make it Smaller
Teo Arwacher
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
Q: What deserves my time?
A: Protect the Routine
Savannah Noirfalise
Global Law
Q: What do I need today?
A: Choose what grounds me
Boris Voronko
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
Q: How do I start?
A: Make it Easy
Jacobo Valencia
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
Q: What feels like mine?
A: Talk it through
Pilot 1 — Spring 2026
One room to start figuring things out
ProjectU began as a live test: can students create a space where people are more honest with themselves, more connected to each other, and more able to take ownership of their own lives? The answer gave us something real to build on.
FOR STUDENTS
YOUR LIFE. YOUR WAY.
Bring the thing you keep avoiding. The pressure you cannot explain. The goal that does not feel like yours yet.
You will meet people who are figuring things out too. You will get space to reflect, try something real, have fun, and find your own way forward.
FOR UNIVERSITIES
BUILD A PLACE STUDENTS ACTUALLY WANT TO ENTER.
ProjectU brings students together around the things that shape how they live, learn, connect, and cope: pressure, uncertainty, failure, identity, habits, and support.
Built with students. Tested in real life. Continuously improved through what students show us.
Pilot V1 gave us the first version.
The next version gives students more time, stronger connection, and a programme that can become part of campus life.