The program is indeed international, with most of the students coming from Western Europe (rather than all around the globe).
Students of this program are worldly, educated, and driven to be change-makers in the world. The professors in my experience are knowledgeable, helpful and good-natured. I like the problem-based learning style that the university is famous for, and the class material is very stimulating, interdisciplinary and relevant to the modern world.
The foreign language track of the program is pretty bad, with classes being only online and just once a week. The program is in its second-ever year so some of the structure of the program and the Skills track have some kinks and need to be reworked.
In the local town, Maastricht, those from a city bigger than a village will most likely find it underwhelming. It’s usually pretty expensive, and finding housing is as impossible as most of the Netherlands and the local Dutch population is reasonably hostile to international students.
View moreI liked the program very much, it developed analytical and problem-solving skills. The focus on mathematics and statistics was extremely useful and I am confident I will be able to put all this knowledge into practice in my work life.
View moreMaastricht University is one of the most international places in whole Europe maybe even in the whole world. Students from everywhere are attending the UM classes and make the city a very warm and multicultural place. The university is known for its PBL or program based learning system which is something I really enjoyed in my first year. Students are supposed to come up with some learning goals which will be discussed in-depth in future tutorials. Each course has a length of 7 weeks in which the students are supposed to learn all the theories needed for the exam which takes place on the 8th week. Students definitely need to study in a very fast manner and spend at least 3 hours a day behind the books. Besides this, there are teamwork and real-life cases and presentations which help students bring the theory into practice. Lectures are most of the time recorded, so even if you miss one you can watch it later at home. Tutorials however have mandatory attendance of around 80% which is quite high for such education.
View moreConsidering Maastricht University is located in the heart of Europe, its internationalism is the thing that attracted me the most. The city is small, but the right size for the first-year kid in need to grow and develop basic skills such as building its own independence, living alone, and making friends with people all over the world in a safe place. My field of study is ‘digital society’: it involves the impact of digitization in every area of life, such as politics, economics, society, development, law, etc. The cool thing is that if a student is hesitating whether to take the course or not, UM has developed an Instagram account you can contact or just follow, to have an insight into what people do at our bachelor program and in Maastricht.
View morePros:
– Focused tutorial groups where learning takes place with 10-15 students so personalized learning
– Course covered the necessary concepts theoretically backed with practical applications through case studies and report submissions
– The Problem Based Learning (PBL) system places more responsibility on the student to gain value from the course and the professors. This is my favorite component of the education system at Maastricht since if someone has a high level of interest in a particular courses, they would be able to obtain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the course through their interactions with their tutors and professors.
– The city is small which contributes positively to the student experience
– I would definitely recommend this course since I believe it impacted, not only my knowledge of the subject matter, but also the way I think of problems which is vital for any graduate entering today’s dynamic workplace environment.
Cons:
-Self-motivation is very important to succeed at Maastricht. If you cannot motivate yourself, external sources of motivation are rare.
– Attendance in lectures and tutorials help more than people realize and if one is going to be studying at Maastricht, one should definitely be prepared to attend 4-6 hours of classes every day, before going back home to work for another 2-4 hours in preparation for the classes on the following day.
– Maastricht is a small city and accommodation is mostly on a Landlord-Tenant basis. Thus, renting costs tend to be quite high and finding accommodation proves to be quite a challenging task for many students.
Overall, Maastricht provided a positive learning experience with a multitude of extracurriculars which people can get immersed in. However, if you want to get the full value from Maastricht University and everything it offers, effective time management is essential since the course itself would take up majority of your time.
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