How warm a reception do they get?

The UT prides itself on being a high quality, international university, but what does it look like to newcomers? Only in the Netherlands since early September, two Germans, one Australian and one Chinese chew the fat in interviews at the Waaier, taking the united verdict: the University of Twente, so far, feels quite international. But there remains room for improvement.

Direct access to the Dean

‘I love the campus facilities, particularly in the sports complex,’ raves Yousef Shadid, an exchange student from Melbourne. When he had the chance to go abroad for six months, he knew immediately Twente would be his destination: ‘Twente is a name that kind of sells itself in Australia. Most students have heard of the university and its achievements.’

The 20-year-old Shadid also praises his courses in the International Business Administration Department: ‘Teaching quality is high, perhaps because of the many guest lecturers and people who have already worked in the world of business.’ And there is a real student atmosphere: ‘I did not expect to meet so many internationals in my department. It makes for a very nice social circle.’ Although this particular upside has a small downside: it is not always easy to get acquainted with the Dutch, ‘They are friendly enough, but it is difficult to integrate in their social groups.’ 

When it comes to food options on campus, Shadid detects some room for improvement: ‘There are three restaurants and one shop; it is not many given the numbers of students.’ Shadid should know, his home university of Swinburne University of Technology has a campus and he also visited several others. He thinks another issue that could require some extra attention is the level of university bureaucracy. Shadid's university application got approved after three months and the process of opening a bank account got delayed by the slowness of university departments to provide the necessary paperwork. If he was elected Dean for one day, Shadid envisages creating a structure whereby students could make their voices heard. “On a fairly regular basis, students could contact the Dean through an online communication platform or at a weekly consultation hour. That way, pending issues may get resolved more quickly and the Dean knows exactly what occupies students' minds.’

Youself Shadid Photo: Ingrid Swajcer

‘No Germans, please’

‘I understand  there are a lot of Germans around and this is a Dutch university, but it still felt like a pity when I was house hunting by phone from Germany and many residences indicated not to want any German students, only Dutch ones’, says 18-year-old Cherilyn Gast from Lünenburg. In that sense, it might be nice if occupants of Dutch residences could be more open to other nationalities, Gast reflects. Now she speaks Dutch and hopes it might make a difference in securing housing.

Apart from these initially bad house-hunting experiences, the Bachelor student in International Business Administration truly loves her new university life at Twente: ‘The lecturers are professional, rooms are modern and spacious and there is the greenness of the campus. And there is never an excuse not to do participate in sports with everything on offer here, you can easily continue with sports you did at home, or try something new altogether.’

If she has time to spare from her study program which is pretty full with lots of required reading which, she admits, can be exhausting at times. But ‘it is not something the lecturers can change; it is just the way the course has been designed. And the practical assignments, such as marketing projects, allow you to immediately test and apply new theoretical insights, which is pretty exciting. Besides, if you need to work with your colleagues there are always free spaces available to do so.’ Finally, Gast loves the human dimension university life has added to her life. ‘I was lucky to meet some great people here, with whom I have become good friends. I quickly found out attending university is a great way to expand your horizons in a social sense too.’ 

Cherilyn Gast Photo: Ingrid Swajcer

Skyscrapers in Shanghai

What touched and impressed Huining Chen, after arriving with 50 kilos of luggage and having made four train transfers from Schiphol airport to Enschede, was the assistance of a Dutch brother and sister who helped carry her luggage when she’d stepped off the train. She’d just finished a long transcontinental flight, leaving her home country in Shanghai, Chin, flying over the Himalayas. It was 12 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and she needed to find her way. ‘I’m always getting lost here,’ she admits. ‘Everything looks the same to me — streets, houses, people and buildings. I will never, ever forget the girl and boy, who saw me struggling with my luggage and ask me if they could help. I don’t even know their names. The Dutch are warm-hearted and when I ask, they freely help and give me directions.’ Modest and shy in demeanor, she expresses how relationships between professors and students feel much closer than her previous experiences, ‘We work many hours on academic projects together. In China, we do this less often. Everyone works individually at school and collaborations are to a minimum.’ She notices there seems to be a general lack of equal representation of nationalities in some faculties and says, ‘Someone recently told me, eighty percent of students in the International Business Administration Department, the field I now study, are Germans.’ Although the 20-year-old remarks of her overall impressions of the UT: ‘On the whole, it is an ‘international place,’ and Imeet many people from lots of different countries on a daily basis.’ Dutch designs fascinate her: ‘Most of the architecture on campus is quite modern, but the buildings have fewer floors than in Shanghai,’ she notes, while staring out the windows in the Waaier at the Research and Education Square. Being a newcomer, the Twente landscapes makes hertake pause: ‘Shanghai is industrialized with many tall skyscrapers that have 30 or more floors. When I cycle to campus, I sometimes stop at a farm and take photographs of the cows. I like to do this.’

Huining Chen Photo: Ingrid Swajcer

Absence of subcultures

Psychology student, Henrike Lūhrmann, 19, arrives at the university after a 2-1/2 hour commute from her home city of Recke in Germany, a journey she makes four days a week. ‘This morning, I got an email that our lecture was cancelled after the time the lecture was scheduled, and I’d already boarded on the train. Sometimes I wish it could be more organized.’ Her search for a student room, on or off campus, has become a major problem: ‘I applied to ACASA and haven’t heard anything back.’ Mostly, the Bachelor student misses the presence of many diverse subcultures and gives the Goths and Punks as examples: ‘What doesn’t seem highly prevalent in Dutch society is the existence of many subcultures. In Germany, we have many.’ She recalls, ‘I once traveled in the UK  and had a negative experience, and I felt there was a definite prejudice against Germans and our history, but I’ve not experienced this in the Netherlands, not yet anyways. Though it’s a big university with many people, there is a lot of open communication going on between people from different countries.’ And, she explains, her experiences in German schools differed from her first few weeks at the UT: ‘You only speak to your friends and not to the teachers in Germany. Professors and lecturers at the UT are really approachable. It’s a family atmosphere and comfortable here. I think there are many little things at the university that I can’t yet put names on that make it international and accepting of other cultures.’

Henrike Lūhrmann. Photo: Ingrid Swajcer