Maastricht University - UM (reviews)

UM embraces diversity of their students, keeping a high standard of research based education. UM offers multidisciplinary approach to education, with an emphasis on problem based learning to allow students to become leaders of their own learning. With highly accomplished and published researchers as course coordinators aided with group tutors, students are ensured to recovered the most enriched and inclusive education within whatever field. The inclusivity of English and Dutch courses allows Maastricht University to cultivate a rich academic environment allowing it to become the top university for several courses. Interested? Join UM on our open days or check out the summer school programmes to get a taste of life in Maastricht!

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.

One of the most advertised features of the university, it is very pressuring and does not deliver the promised results – everything still has to be learned in the same manner as everywhere else – but here no tutorials are to be missed and PBL is supposed to be a key to successful graduation. Doing twice the work, therefore dividing the attention and time resources, without other options for students struggling with this method – then you are on your own.

Maastricht is in the centre of Europe. Its position, together with the quality of the courses, makes Maastricht University a very international city. You can meet people from all the European countries and the world, so I would say you can grow personally in a really short time. Learn about cultures, activities and styles in your everyday life.
The university is quite hard, but very rewarding, due to its growing importance in Europe. The course offered is really really interesting, up to date and you can feel like studying something needed in nowadays society.

Personally, I studied European and International Law and now I am pursuing a master’s in Globalisation and Law at the same university

The program offers insights into many different disciplines. I especially enjoy the field of biotechnology, but at the same time, I like to elect business courses that introduce me to management strategies, marketing or entrepreneurship. Hence, the diversity of my studies fascinate me and generate a holistic view of problems. Maastricht University and especially its problem-based learning approach has a great reputation, guaranteeing good future perspectives. However, I personally find the University could be even more international since students from Belgium and Germany represent the majority. Maastricht, being a bike city, makes it pleasant for students to join activities and go out. Still, Maastricht is a rather small city that has nice bars and one club, but cannot be considered a party city. Instead, it is cosy and in my opinion, a good place to start your life away from home.

Maastricht University is a highly international university, giving me the opportunity to study and learn with people from several different nationalities. The course European Law is an amazing course, which gives a broad and extensive knowledge of different legal systems. The aspect that attracts me the most is the comparative approach of the course. We, students, learn deeply due to the comparison that we are encouraged to make between different countries, taking the consideration the state and government structure, the legislative process, the assumptions in contract law…
As the university follows the PBL system, the students acquire a huge understanding in the overall content since we need to go after the information by ourselves and construct the logic in our heads, before consolidating it in the tutorials and lectures. The teachers are in the tutorials ot guide the students and show right ways to approach and face the contents.

I 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.

Maastricht 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.