By Dr. Jaap Kamphuis, Programme Manager International Studies 

Compared to national average
International Studies outperforms most programmes in the Netherlands on the following themes: internationalization, the internship experience, pursuit of excellence, general skills, teachers, and group size. We monitor everything in the programme closely to ensure that students receive a quality educational experience, and we are happy to see that this is recognised in the survey. For large programmes like ours, with a very engaged and critical student body, outperforming the average is exceptional. And we achieve it in 6 of the 17 categories!

Compared to last year
In some other categories we perform on, or just below the national average, but still show some significant improvements over last year’s scores. I will not mention all of them, but some outstanding results were booked in the following categories: preparation professional career, examinations, availability of information, internship and study programme and quality evaluations. Improvements in these are areas, are no coincidence because we have been working on them  over the past few years. Our success is also thanks to the input we received from our students who, amongst others, participated in ‘focus group’’ sessions on labour market preparation, and advised us on the smooth running of the internship and study programme. We also received valuable input from all those who filled out evaluation forms regarding the quality of the courses, and those who advised the Programme Board as members of the Education Committee.

Areas for improvement
One major concern for most students is the availability of study facilities. We share this concern with the students and raise this regularly in our meetings with the Campus. As a result of this, a new booking system for lecture halls, allowing students to use lecture halls when they are empty, has been introduced. We have also made sure the system is more flexible than it was, by enabling reservations to be made even when the timeslot is already running.

There are plans for expanding the available space by adding other buildings in the vicinity to the Campus, but that is medium to long term planning. In the meantime, we would like to be kept up to date on the daily experience of our students with the study facilities. You can always approach one of the student members of the Programme Board: Sofie Hagen and Mathes Rausch.

Next Student Survey - Coming Up
The NSE will take place in the coming months. We would like to use this opportunity to encourage you to fill out the survey and offer us your invaluable insights on your overall experience of the programme. We are confident that we can keep improving and we need your input to do so!

Check the scores for International Studies and other study programmes here.