Hello everyone! We are back with another Minor Monday post, in which current third-year BSc Tourism students share their experiences with the minor. Due to COVID-19, students were unfortunately unable to travel abroad. However, many have found different ways to still enjoy their minor. Enjoy this first story by Marie Oppenhausen!

Today I would like to share my impressions of the minor I am doing. Similar to many other third years, I had to change my plans of doing a minor in Conservation and Recreation Management abroad at Michigan State University…but thankfully there was still the opportunity to do a minor in Wageningen which is still nice and probably saved me a lot of money. Of course, this is not the ideal situation but I’m trying to make the best out of it. Currently, I am doing the climate change minor. In this program, you have four different courses over the semester as well as a fifth course which doesn’t have to be related to the minor (a free choice course).

My courses at the moment are completely online and in this whole semester, I’ve only been to campus around 3 times. One of my courses offers the option to watch the lecture at uni with other students which is really nice. However, I haven’t done this because I am home in Germany at the moment. A plus point of studying from home is that I always have nice food, good wine and my family and my dog around! When I started studying in the Netherlands, I definitely didn’t expect to do almost a whole semester from my bedroom at home, but I still appreciate being able to spend time at home which I wouldn’t have otherwise.

At the moment I am taking the course Sustainability Transitions: Concepts, Issues and Indicators and my free choice course which is called Gender and Diversity in our consumer culture. If you are interested in societal topics such as sexism, racism etc., I highly recommend taking this course. It explores certain issues that are deeply embedded in our society through marketing, advertisement, movies and more. One of the most interesting courses I’ve had so far! My schedule is relatively relaxed now, the Sustainability course already finished all the lectures so now I have time to focus on my essay writing which will be about the trend of renewable energy in the USA. So even though I didn’t get to spend a semester there I can still learn a little bit about the country. My Gender & Diversity course is three days a week and only in the afternoon, so I have some more free time to work on the assignments.

Overall staying in the Netherlands for my minor is a really good choice, although I was a bit surprised at first with the study load. In the first 2 years, having classes three days a week is a luxury! When you do your minor here, it is definitely more which took me a bit of time to get used to. The periods are shorter, only 6 weeks of lectures in period 1 & 2, then you have a week off to study before the exams. However, it is still doable, so no need to stress.

I would have preferred to share an experience about studying in the US with you but what can you do? The minor is now almost halfway done. Although staying in Wageningen for my minor is really nice, I hope that future BSc Tourism students will have the freedom again to go where they want to go!

Written by: Marie Oppenhausen