Foreign students promote Dutch education

Foreign students are enthusiastic about Dutch education. “It’s a different way of teaching, more interactive,” says Jack Huang from Taiwan. He is one of the 200 graduates from 36 countries attending the Holland Alumni Conference in The Hague this week to form an international knowledge network.

As many as 76,000 foreign students come to the Netherlands every year to study. And who better to promote Dutch higher education abroad than the huge group of students themselves? This is what Hanneke Teekens from the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic) thinks.

“These people have experienced what it is like to study in the Netherlands and they can give much more genuine information to people in their own country. Whatever one may think, it is quite different from a flashy brochure or a beautiful video about our country.”

What is so special about studying in the Netherlands? And what do alumni think about the level of education here? Radio Netherlands Worldwide spoke with some graduates.

Seta Agustina (32) from Jakarta, Indonesia, works in the public relations department of the Ministry of Agriculture.
“I studied Natural Resource Management at the University of Enschede (this name is so hard to pronounce!). Dutch education is unique. You are not just studying what you have to study, but you also get the sense of an international atmosphere of knowledge-sharing.”

“It’s very different from Indonesia. There are usually only Indonesian students there, but here, it’s so international. Me and my friends used to call it the ‘little United Nations’. You can meet people from all over the world. During lunch, for example, you will hear Spanish, Italian, English, Indonesian.”

“Everything was new to me, and that was a great experience. It was the first time I saw snow, my first time on a bike. I really enjoyed the green spaces in Enschede as well. And so much clean air. I miss running in the park in the morning.”

Jack Huang (32) from Taipei, Taiwan, works at Burberry as a financial analyst.
“I studied at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I did a Master in Business Administration. I like Holland a lot, it’s a very free country. You can say anything openly, you can always express your opinion.”

“The level of education here is pretty high, about the same as in Taiwan, I think. But it’s a different way of teaching here, more interactive. In the Asian style, the professor tells you what to do and what to learn. Here you are sharing your thoughts and you learn from each other, also socially speaking.”

“I lived in a student dorm, and on Sundays it was always happy hour. You could meet up with people there and drink, talk and have fun. It was a happy time.”

Fabio Odaguiri (31) from Sao Paulo, Brazil, works as a barrister.
“I did the Master in Law programme at the University of Groningen. It was my best academic experience ever. Choosing among the four countries I lived in, Great Britain, Brazil, Germany and Holland, I would easily live in Holland.”

“The cosmopolitan culture, the efficiency and the level of the quality of services here and infrastructures makes life so much easier. I really couldn’t find a better place to study. The education here is much better than in Brazil. We can learn a lot from the Netherlands in the fields of human rights law, I think.”

“Groningen was amazing, it’s like a little universe there. My best memory can be summed up in Peperstraat, the party street in Groningen. We had such great parties there!”