NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences Speciality : Communication
programme: Communication and Media

When deciding on where to study, I immediately knew that I would be moving abroad.

And now, having started my first year at NHL Stenden I can say, that I do not regret it! 🙂

Surrounded by other international students, I can assure you, that everyone is sitting in the same boat, new experience after new experience and before you know it, you’ll find yourself in a group of people, finding friends in absolute strangers.

From the intro camp up to the 12 Design Challenges in the beginning, you will learn to work together with the people in your community, how to start from perhaps 0 knowledge on how to use InDesign or Illustrator etc. and despite the struggles work through it.
How to create your very first design project with your partner and to realise by the end of period 1 how much you’ve learned.
And how suddenly you’ve come to build a routine, how you’ve grown accustomed to not only NHL but also Leeuwarden.

Sure it can be overwhelming and often enough you’ll feel as if you’re plunging into cold water, but I have found it to be all worth it.

CMD is for those who want to learn and will put in the effort to achieve so.

NHL Stenden offers one-year-long master’s programs, which are filled with information in a relatively short time. While one would think the “Content and Media Strategy” Master is filled with content creation and creativity, this master combines strategic thinking with creativity. I am nearly halfway through the program and have already learned a lot. While a lot of my peers expected more creativity and content creation, the first semester actually focused a lot on research and getting to know a brand’s target audience. In general, this process is really interesting, but the time planning for this process seemed a little off. At the beginning of the studies, the workload was rather low until we sent out our surveys. Within an instant, the workload increased by about one month. I believe this could have been planned better so that the workload would be spread out more. I am also curious to see how the second semester is planned out as it involves actual content creation where we will produce and implement our ideas based on the strategic approach we created.
Overall, I really enjoy my studies. I love the fact that we are working very closely with a real-life client who is giving us insights into their brand, business, and content creation. In this master’s, we have a lot of people from different nationalities and academic backgrounds, which makes the learning progress even more interesting. And especially with the fact in mind that this study is only one year long, it is a great opportunity to develop oneself and gain a master’s degree without having to study for very long.