Student review [#4154]
at Maastricht University - UM

Luckily, I am one of the few people that have had the luxury of studying at two different universities; Erasmus University Rotterdam (henceforth called EUR) and Maastricht University (henceforth called UM). I studied Business Administration last year in Rotterdam and now European Studies at UM. UM has what’s called PBL (Problem Based Learning). This has its advantages and disadvantages over traditional learning (sitting in a lecture hall).

– you’re actively working with the study material
– you hear 10-15 different points of view, as opposed to just one from the lecturer
– small-scale, so a lot of personal interaction with others
– no big pressure to ask the tutor something, because of the smaller scale

Now, it also has a couple of drawbacks that I feel have to be mentioned

– if you don’t do your preparation for a tutorial, you will miss out on a lot of perks
– sometimes multiple people have not done their preparation
– you are dependent on other people and vice versa

All of these pros and cons are subjective. Some people think the pros outweigh the cons and others think the exact opposite.

The university advertises itself as a very international university. And I will have to agree, to some extent. I can only speak for my own faculty and studies. I cannot comment on other faculties and studies as I do not have a first-hand experience. At my studies about 70% is from a foreign (not from the Netherlands) country. Up until now, I have not noticed anything that might suggest that one “group” is treated differently than the other. It does not matter if you’re from the other side of the world or if you were born and raised in Maastricht. Everyone is equal.

The city is obviously also a big part of your academic career at UM. I personally love the city of Maastricht. It is not a very big city, but this makes it very cozy. Don’t expect there to be a lot of clubs, Maastricht is a typical pubs and bars city. Something that has to be mentioned, is that UM does not have just one campus or campus housing. Be mindful of this.

To finish off my experiences so far: I am really enjoying my time studying at UM. It is a smaller university compared to others, but it’s quite personal.