een semester in utrecht

Another Introduction day, but this time with a little more diversification, since I had to go to the city and not to De Uithof. The faculty of humanities also wanted to welcome me and a whole bunch of other international students as well.

Getting to the correct building was not an easy task. I have not been there before and so I had neither landmarks nor any prominent places to orientate. Just going to places with a lot of people and bicycles was also not the solution to my problem since you can find them everywhere. But I got there… somehow.

The university buildings in the city do not differ from the surrounding ones. They are directly integrated in the old buildings. Only a small sign at the front tells you that this building belogns to the university. But once you are in you see that those are much bigger than thought first. A lot of walls have been removed leaving much space for big lecture rooms.

During the introduction we were told a lot about the dutch university culture. About things like the missing holidays and the dutch grading system. The first one is just a neccessary restraint, otherwise there would not be enough time for four 10-week quarters. The latter one offers an insight of the dutch mentality of grading. The grades range from 10 to 1 (in descending order of excellence). But usually none of the students will reach a nine or even a ten, since “de tien is voor god” and “de negen voor de professeur”.

Of course we had a coffeebreak in between. The coffee at the university is really good and even if you do not get it for free, it is very cheap with round about 40 Cents.

Another 45min of speech and we reached the final part of the introduction. Namely the issue of the student-ID cards together with the Letter of acceptance.

Now I am officially student at the University of Utrecht.