Campus Visit to Tilburg University

06/02/2014 00:00:00

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How lucky we are! Yes, we got an opportunities to visit Tilburg University in Netherlands on Friday, 16^th May 2014. Tilburg University is a public research university, specializing in the social and behavioral sciences, economic, and law. Tilburg University is in the world top 50 for economics & econometrics, the top 100 for law, and among the best 150 for philosophy, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2014 that was published today. The QS World University Rankings, based on universities’ reputations among scholars, ranks the 800 best universities in the world.

 

 

One of the alumni of this university is Hofstede! We talk about his book in Cross Culture Management Class, a lot (how cool isn’t it? :p). So, the first time we arrived to this university, we are amazed by the environment of this campus. This campus is so modern yet so green, there’s a lot of tree between the building. It is not that hard to find the class which we have been told before to have the meeting because all the direction is clearly describe everywhere.

 

Because we arrived a little bit too early, we went to Mrs. Bergsma office at the beginning. Mrs. Bergsma is head of international relations office in Tilburg University. She was so kind to welcome us and guiding us to see buildings around the campus. First, she lead us to see Mr. Herman Beck, he was born in Sorong, Indonesia, and we were very surprise that he can speak Bahasa fluently (we have  a little conversation with him in Bahasa). And he told us, that Atmajaya has an oppurtunity to get scholarship for Economy, Law, and Humanities program for Master program. It is included in Frans Seda Award. After that, we went to the library, and we only saw computers everywhere, we did not see any book there! And Mrs. Bergsma explain that now, Tilburg University is using new technology, so every book is available in digital version. After exploring the library, we went to the canteen, the canteen sales so many diverse food, so whether you are Asian, Americans, or Germans, you still can enjoy your meal in this canteen.

 

 

Finally, the time lead us to the meeting with the president of Tilburg Orientation Program (TOP) and president of International Exchange Erasmus Student Network) I*ESN, so Mrs. Bergsma guide us to the meeting class that already described before. I*ESN is an organization that accomodate students, especially international student who studied in Tilburg for a whole year. TOP is an organization for all the new students to give them introduction for entering campus life.

 

The activity of the I*ESN is mainly about having fun with the international students and Dutch students, such as they eat and cook together every Friday, they go on a trip to cities in Netherland, and so on. The main purpose of this activity is to make the international students know each others, and make them feel comfortable and happy to study there. And for the additional purpose, for the Dutch students, they can learn more about new culture, and improve their English skill.

 

And TOP is probably similar with “Tim 5” in Atmajaya University. They organize something called “TOP Week.” It is an orientation week for a new student. The main purpose of this week is to introduce campus life to the new student, how to get in the library, and so on. And at the end of this week, there will be a party for everyone to purely have fun after the long-tired week. All the event by TOP and I*ESN are financed by the campus and there also fee for everyone to join any event.

 

 

We’ve got a lot of great information already! So, it’s time for us to go back to Bocholt and continue our studies there. Thank you Tilburg for the great experience! I hope we can meet you again soon, maybe as a student! J

(Lita Hardianti, Mariska Puspita, Riana)