Utrecht University - UU Speciality : Sociology
programme: Social Sciences

I had one of my worst experiences here in my whole life. I studied sustainable development- international development, in the Geosciences school and WOW, let me tell you, the disorganisation is unsurmountable. Between lack of preparation of workload, teachers, and supervisors not responding, a complete lack of awareness of mental health, and honestly, just a lack of a positive environment. I like to work in positive environments, where people are not stressed all the time and the workload is realistic to everyone. This was not that. Supervisors and lecturers tend to want to test you and trip you up rather than educate you and guide you further. As a Master’s student, I thought we were through with that kind of petty teaching and was looking forward to a more mature form of studying, yet we were talked down to, patronized, and ignored for the majority of my 2 years here. I would not recommend any person to put themselves through this nightmare of a course until it is restructured and organised. It is a waste of money, and even when your studies are delayed through the fault of the university – or in the case of COVID-19, they will still have no problems taking your money. I found that there was a degree on incompetence at every level, there is a systematic failure in how they run things. This includes the interactions with the board, who also do not reply or give reasonable advice, with the study advisor, who does not know the meaning of confidentiality or mental health, and the system itself where there is a lot of unnecessary, time-wasting procedures in place which are only a bigger distraction from the work itself, and often lead to a more financial burden. Do not apply here if you are a person who lives outside the box that the system expects you to be in because I’m warning you, this university is not prepared to deal with anything except what is written in the course guide, AKA the Course Bible.