Putting the "Study" in Study Abroad

School here is so different than at the University of Wisconsin! Today is Friday, February 8th, and I have just completed my first week of school at Maastricht University. Let me tell you about school in the Netherlands...

At Maastricht University, there are no semesters but rather 6 periods that are each around two months long (except period 6, which is only one month) that make up an academic school year. It sounds like most students here enroll in classes for 4 or 5 of the 6 periods each year. I am here for periods 4 (February and March) and 5 (April and May). Each period, I have two classes. What!!? Only two classes at once? That's right, but it's a full semester worth of work condensed into two months. Having fewer classes at once is nice, but that does not mean the work load is any easier! Both of my classes this period recommend putting in 20 hours of studying/preparing for lectures/working on projects and papers outside of class every week. There are no midterms here, but the final exams at the end of each period are rigorous and it is not uncommon to fail. If you fall a course, you can take the exam resit which occurs after the next period. Here's an example of what this looks like:

February 4 - March 29: Period 4 classes
April 1 - April 5: Period 4 exams
April 8 - April 12: Period 3 resit exams
April 15 - June 7: Period 5 classes
June 10 - June 14: Period 5 exams
June 17 - June 21: Period 4 resit exams

Each class here meets twice per week for two hours at a time. I lucked out with my schedule this period; one of my classes is on Mondays and Thursdays from 13:30 - 15:30 (that's 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm for you American folks) and my other class meets again on Mondays and Thursdays from 16:00 - 18:00 (4 pm - 6 pm). I have class Monday and Thursday afternoons/evenings, but that's it! This means I have no commitments on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Fridays! I'm assuming most of my Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be homework days (as they were this week), but if I ever have a week with a smaller workload I can spend those days traveling to nearby destinations.

The teaching style here contrasts UW-Madison's quite a bit. At Maastricht, everything is taught with Project Based Learning (PBL). With PBL, you work in small tutorial groups to explore real-world challenges and problems. There are no lectures, only these small tutorials which have no more than 15 people! This active way of learning helps you retain the knowledge from your classes better as everything is hands-on and a group discussion. Each class has a "tutor" who is the course instructor to guide the discussion and observe the quantity and quality of your participation for a grade. Students are required to prepare for all tutorials by completing readings and doing extensive research on the topic(s) beforehand to be able to participate during tutorial. A group of students or an individual student will be in charge of leading each tutorial; for example, I am in a group with three other students and we must lead half of the tutorial on Monday in my Global Transportation Management class. This means we need to come up with an interactive way to engage our peers for one hour on Monday. This learning method is so different from UW's, but I'm excited to try it out and I honestly think it will be more effective!

Almost all of the students attending Maastricht University complete an exchange semester at another university, like I am doing right now. They all talk about their exchanges -- where they went, what they did, how the school was different/similar, etc. It is not like the U.S. where only a small percentage of college students study abroad for a semester. I have learned that the U.S. does not emphasize study abroad nearly as much as other countries around the world; for a lot of my friends at UW, it would be hard for them to study abroad without falling behind in their coursework and staying in school for an extra semester to graduate. I wish it was more common and accessible for students in the U.S. to enjoy a semester abroad because I have already learned so much about the Dutch culture and schooling, and this whole experience will test my ability to adapt and problem solve in diverse situations. If I could change the higher education system in the states, this might be where I would start😉