Hi, first- and second-years! My name is Mirjam. I’m a 3rd year BSc Tourism student, currently living in Wageningen where I am spending my Minor/Free Choice period. My free choice consists of several courses related to Spatial Planning and Communication.
Living in Wageningen is definitely different from living in Breda. The city itself isn’t as lively and ‘gezellig’. However, a huge asset of Wageningen is the university itself, which offers you every facility you need. My days here are often filled with lectures and seminars, as my courses require a lot of project work. In the past months, going home after 6 pm has become a lot more common for me than before! Fortunately this does not happen every day and eventually it becomes normal.
My courses turned out to be very interesting and, as for the Spatial Planning courses, the projects are very practice-oriented. You develop and design a lot on your own as well as with your fellow group members, which is really nice to do. It seems obvious, but this is why I believe that when deciding about your minor, it’s definitely worth looking closely into the courses you would like to do. When you choose courses that strongly appeal to you, following them becomes so much more interesting.
Because the university plays such a big part in Wageningen’s society, a lot of activities and facilities are focused on student life. Besides the activities that are organized by student- and study organizations, there aren’t that many possibilities to go out. But lively and fun cities such as Utrecht, Arnhem and Nijmegen are only a short trainride away!
The fun thing about doing a free choice/minor – whether you go to Wageningen or another university – is that you join different courses that often are not take by the same people. This way in each course you get to meet loads of new people. With the huge number of different nationalities in Wageningen, this is very interesting and a lot of fun. As my fellow Wageningen-goer Joeri already mentioned, there are tons of different types of people attending Wageningen University that all have their own outlook on life. It’s very inspiring to get to know so many different people, and it can be hilarious to sometimes.
As much fun as it seems to go on an exchange, Wageningen is a good alternative! You definitely get to meet a lot of new people and learn a lot about completely different fields of study. So if Wageningen University offers courses on a subject you like, have a good look at them.
Written by: Mirjam
