192 Applications!

Dear all,

After a couple of months of extensive preparations and intense marketing we have reached the exciting 'Selection-period' for students wanting to go on exchange in the 2011-2012 Academic Year. Our goal (and hope) was to receive more applications then we did last year and we are very happy to let you all know that we succeeded!

After having received only a modest amount of applications in the early morning of the day of the deadline, the stream of students dropping by our office successively increased and by the end of the day we had received no less than 192(!) applications. It is great to see such an enthusiasm for studying abroad!

Now, two weeks later, we have finished our first intense week of interviews and are well on our way with the second week of reading applications and interviewing applicants. By the end of next week we will have seen all students and the challenging, but exciting, selection will take place. Just before the Christmas holiday starts we aim to have informed all students of the outcome and we can all enjoy Christmas knowing that we have made the lives of (hopefully most of) our applying students a little brighter!

We will keep you updated with the information about the most favorite destinations this year, the spots still left open for the second round of application and other exciting news from the office.

Until next time!
Elena, Linda and Maaike

Conference

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this message as I’m on my way back to the Netherlands and enjoying the scenery flashing by my window in the Thalys. The last couple of days Maaike and I have been attending the EAIE (European Association for International Education) conference in Nantes, France.

On the conference there were 3.600 people from 83 countries from all over the world. An impressive number of people who all try to make their university become more and more international. The opening session of the conference hosted a guest speaker, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia who wrote the book “Pray the devil back to hell”. She is a feminist who stood up in Liberia and gathered a large group of women to ‘fight’ for peace in Africa. The speech was very impressive and confrontating and I would recommend everyone to read her book or see her movie.

On Wednesday I attended a workshop on social networking, this was supposed to help us implementing tools such as Facebook, Twitter,Blogging and LinkedIn to get you guys more involved in the activities from the exchange office and keeping you up to date with all our activities. This of course resulted in this blog :). The workshop was very interesting and was presented by very experienced people from Cambridge university (UK), Northeastern University (USA) and Talinn University (Estonia). During the workshop they showed us some very funny and interesting video’s on social networking. Check the following link to see one of those video´s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2o2L5DUIuw.
Especially the following movie was very funny since this is just a simple video on a guy dancing around the world that got very famous despite its simplicity and you might have already seen it, since it has already been viewed 31.319.287 times by people from around the world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY.

On Thursday and Friday I had meetings all day with coordinators or heads of the international offices of many of my partner universities. I ran around the conference all day to be on time for the meetings. It was great to meet all the people that I’ve been corresponding with the last couple of month and to see the faces that correspond with the e-mails. I’ve met partners from: Mannheim University (Germany); our new partner Ozygin University (Turkey); ESAN (Peru); Rouen Business School (France); University of Economics Prague (Czech Republic); Universidad del Pacifico (Peru); University of Bern (Switzerland); Vilnius University (Lithuania); Universidad de los Andes (Colombia); METU (Turkey); Koc University (Turkey); Bilkent University (Turkey); Bocconi University (Italy); Corvinus University (Hungary); Universidad del Rosario (Colombia) and last but not least PUC Rio de Janeiro (Brasil).

To summarize: it has been a great, interesting and inspiring week and in opposite to what I’ve learned during the workshop on Wednesday I did not network online, but in real life with many people from all over the world.

Since I’ve been jealous of many of you who went/are on exchange to the most exotic, exciting and wonderful places or enjoyed your holiday during the summer I will now make you jealous by saying that I will be enjoying my holiday for the coming three weeks in Indonesia :). If you have an urgent question that you would normally address to me you can now contact Elena or Maaike at TISEM-exchange@uvt.nl.

See you in a couple of weeks!
Linda

A week ago the new Academic Year started. After a long quiet summer on campus all of a sudden on Monday morning the campus was vibrant again and full of enthusiastic people ready for their new year.

The new international students arrived a week earlier. For the coming academic year we have about 800 new students that will be studying at Tilburg University. During the arrival days about 500 international students arrived to campus, of which approximately 250 exchange students. Of this number about 105 students are studying at the Tilburg School of Economics and Management. Many nationalities from all over the world will be represented at Tilburg University, we have students coming from all over the world, such as South Korea, Australia, USA, Argentina, Greece, Turkey, Hong Kong and so on. This is what makes Tilburg an international campus with international classrooms where people from all nationalities and Dutch students enjoy the same lectures.

During our introductory Welcome Week the exchange students had their own programme. The academic part of the programme served to get to know their way around campus and know how everything at Tilburg university works, such as the exam registration, lectures, grading system, course registration et cetera. The social part of the programme was of course to meet all fellow exchange students, get to know their way around Tilburg, getting to know ESN and all other student organizations and most of all, having fun.

Last week the official lectures started and the international students had to get used to the Dutch way of living, meet a lot of new people and get used to the Tilburg way of teaching. Now everyone has settled in (hopefully!) and all students have chosen their final list of courses they will be taking during their semester at Tilburg University.

Having all these international exchange students at Tilburg University is also the perfect opportunity for Dutch students who are interested in studying at one of our partner universities to meet people from the country they are interested in, and ask those questions they can’t ask anyone else!

See you all,

Maaike, Elena and Linda

Our student assistants are leaving

Today is a sad day at the International Programmes Office of TiSEM. Our student assistants who have been helping us with everything, from printing stickers to setting up complicated computer programmes, are leaving us. Even if we are left helpless and heartbroken, we all know that our dear assitants are leaving for a greater good; they are going on exchange!

If you want to read about their adventures and follow their exciting new lives abroad check out their blogs. Krisztian is first out, leaving for Hong Kong in only a couple of weeks. Follow him on:

http://krisztianinhongkong.blogspot.com/

Greetings,

Elena, Linda and Maaike

Hi there!
Through this blog we will keep you updated on all happenings in and around the exchange office at Tilburg School of Economics and Management; informing you about important dates and events, posting funny anecdotes from our exchange students currently abroad and telling you about all the exciting destinations worldwide that we have on offer.

First of all we would like to introduce ourselves and tell you more about our own international experiences. As you might imagine we are all very internationally oriented, having spent plenty of time working and studying abroad.

Maaike can offer our students hands-on advice based on her own experiences from her exchange to Finland. She has also lived in the U.S. and Australia and she has been travelling all over the world getting to know various cultures. Intercultural communication is one of her great interests, which might not come as a big surprise seeing as this is the study she graduated from a couple of years ago. At the moment she is travelling through Norway, enjoying the beautiful scenery Scandinavia has to offer.


Linda also decided to broaden her view during her study and went to both Costa Rica and Canary Islands working as an intern. During her time there she not only became fluent in Spanish but she also gained the valuable experience of what it is like to live in and adapt to another culture. Furthermore Linda spent a couple of months travelling through South America getting to know the different cultures of Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. She has also travelled to several countries in Asia and to the U.S.


Elena was born and raised in Sweden but she has spent the past eleven years living, working and studying abroad. Six years ago she arrived in the Netherlands after having spent several years in Spain and the U.S. During her time abroad she has not only learnt to speak Spanish, English and Dutch fluently, but she has also gained a great deal of intercultural experience that she can share with the students. Elena has also had the opportunity to live in and become familiar with the cultures of Peru and England.




Here in the exchange office we assist students with all matters regarding their exchange. During the summer months we are mainly busy preparing everything for the departure for our students going on exchange abroad. We are also busy making sure everything is ready for the arrival of the students coming to Tilburg from partner universities all over the world. The first of our students from Tilburg have already arrived safely at their destinations. If you are curious to read about their first impressions, check out their blogs here on the right!

If you are currently studying at Tilburg School of Economics and Management and you are interested in knowing more about our partner universities and the procedures around applying for an exchange, please go to our Blackboard page Study Abroad Information (FEBSAI).

For future students and all others interested in what we have to offer, please visit our website for more information about the possibilities to study abroad.

You are also always welcome to contact us with questions via email at tisem-exchange@uvt.nl !

Till the next blog!

Elena, Linda and Maaike