Maastricht University - UM
speciality: Social Policy

My experience at Maastricht University has been very enriching. I really appreciated the way the professors, organized the courses and made the learning experience clear and accessible. The teaching was outstanding, and I felt supported throughout the semester.

One of the highlights of studying at Maastricht is the abundance of opportunities for motivated students. From job offers to extracurricular activities and a wide range of student associations, it’s incredibly easy to integrate into the city and feel like an active part of the community. There’s a strong sense of belonging and plenty of chances to grow both academically and personally.

That said, some areas could use improvement, particularly in course scheduling. Sometimes, topics discussed in tutorials were too advanced before we had the background knowledge from the lectures, which made it challenging to follow along. It would also be beneficial to have more guidance when transitioning between medical and public health content, as some lectures felt more focused on biomedical details rather than the public health perspective.

Overall, I am grateful for the knowledge and skills I’ve gained here and the opportunity to be part of this community. Maastricht University offers a great environment for students who are passionate about making a difference in their field of studies.

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.

Considering 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.