Dutch Universities

[Oldowl]

My DD is interested in a career with an NGO or the UN.

She has looked at the Political Science degree offered by the University of Amsterdam and also the International Relations and Organisation degree offered by Leiden University in The Hague. She is very keen to study in Europe as she would love to immerse herself in another culture and language.

www.uva.nl/en/education/bachelor-s/bachelor-s-programmes/item/political-science.html

www.bachelors.leiden.edu/studies/info/international-relations-and-organisations/bachelors-programme/

The Hague is also home to so many international organisations, which I am sure she would take full advantage of.

Has anyone else had a child study in The Netherlands? How did they settle? And was their degree recognised and welcomed by UK employers or did they end up staying in Europe?

DD1 looked into this as we had lived in the Netherlands for a few years am nd she is a fluent Dutch speaker. In the end she went to a UK university.

Things to consider: language, finance, accessibility.

Language: the course is taught in English but day to day living will be in Dutch so she should plan to learn the language very quickly.

Student finance is different from the UK. While she will be able to get a loan for course fees she you should plan for her to be self financing for living costs.

Flights to/from the UK can be quite cheap but only if it is possible to be flexible and plan ahead so nipping home can be expensive.

I have worked for multinational companies so lots of degrees from different countries. I don't recall there being any problems.

Remember that post brexit many EU rights may be lost making freedom of travel and study more difficult.

Thank you, Gnome. Glad to hear that having a European degree is not usually a problem for multi nationals.

We are planning to self fund the living costs, this will probably be for 4 years as I believe most people go on to do a Masters in the Dutch system.

She is keen to immerse herself in a new language as the UN requires most employees to have a 2nd language.

Hi Oldowl. If she's doing this for the UN language requirements check which, if any, UN agencies have Dutch as an official language. The second language requirements vary from agency to agency (though you can pretty much count on English, French and Spanish). I suspect fluency in Dutch may not be of much use outside of the Netherlands.

There may be very good reasons for choosing a Dutch university and a non-Dutch friend's daughter is at a Dutch university now and loving it but if she's looking to join the UN, I'd look for a university in France or Spain!

A Bachelors degree in Holland takes a minimum of 3 years and a Masters a minimum of 2 years, so plan on at least 5 years. It is very common for students to not finish their degrees within the minimum time.

Plan for the possibility of higher fees post Brexit. With hard Brexit on the table, I don't think it's likely that UK students will get the EU rate and Dutch courses are in any case looking to escalate their fees in the near future.