On 17 November, International Student Day, we celebrate the community of international students at VUB. With nearly 25% of our student body consisting of international students, they are an integral part of the fabric of the university. This year we put our focus on our European university network alliance, EUTOPIA[1], and we chat to two students who participated in student projects, and in particular the TeamWork project. We sat down with Helena Verspagen and Jan Krsnik.
EUTOPIA’s TeamWork is an online international work experience where groups of 6 students from the participating universities within the EUTOPIA alliance work on a project with organisations from across Europe. With the TeamWork project in 2024, students spent four weeks working together from 24 June until 19 July, 10 hours a week. The students are given support and training before the project starts to improve their intercultural, presentation and time management skills. For VUB, 12 students participated and we put forward four organisations/companies to work with the students, based in Thailand, Portugal, and Belgium. It’s an opportunity for students to learn to work together in a team, but also work on timing issues, as some people are not necessarily located in the same time zone, whether that is one of their fellow team mates, or the people from the organisation or company.
Helena is to the far right in this photo at the EUTOPIA event in Romania earlier in 2024
Helena, from Belgium, but very internationally-minded:
Third year, bachelor's in business economics, focusing on international business.
“I have a very international view on life, so from the start I decided I wanted to study in English. Ultimately I want to live abroad, with a specific interest in Asia, and maybe even more specifically Japan. I’m currently learning Chinese here at the VUB. I absolutely love studying with all the international students.”
Helena is from Antwerp, but seems to do everything she can to gain international experience. Earlier in the year (15-19 April), she participated in the EUTOPA Innovation Challenge for Students Discovery Week at Babeş-Bolyai University in Romania, along with some 80 other students from across all EUTOPIA university partners. “It was an amazing experience. VUB organised all for me, including flights and accommodation. The event was also in-person, which was great, and the cultural side of the event was a boost. There were 6 of us from VUB.” And because Helena enjoyed this so much, she also signed up for the EUTOPIA TeamWork project over summer.
“It was really interesting work. Our group got to work on a social enterprise project, where we had to do analyses, set up interviews and look at the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) focus. In our case it was looking at the supply of materials to see what improvements could be made in the supply chain to make it more sustainable. The groups were a good size and we all divided the tasks.”
Appreciating the international student community at VUB
“VUB is so incredibly international. It reflects the city of Brussels really. I’m completely immersed in my English-taught study programme, and I have to say I don’t have that much contact with students in the Dutch-taught programmes, even though I’m Flemish myself”, explains Helena.
“It’s a joy to be on campus and mingle with all the different nationalities. I think some Belgian students are maybe a bit scared of the possible differences between cultures, but honestly, there’s no need for that. I’m in my third year, and although we do see differences, it tends to mostly be in how we eat. That can be quite funny sometimes. But other than that, we are all one big family.”
Jan in Brussels
Jan, from Croatia, settling into the Belgian way of things:
Second year, bachelor's in social sciences, focusing (probably) on political sciences.
“I found the information on TeamWork on the student portal, and I just thought it might be a nice way to meet new people, while getting some (online) work experience at the same time. The project VUB put me on was a perfect fit, as it looked at sustainability and urban development. It was really interesting, and the team I was in was nice.”
Jan had moved to Belgium with his parents, when his mother got relocated here for work reasons. Studying at VUB seemed an obvious choice then, because of the study programme in English, but also because the university is so incredibly international. He always wanted to study abroad, rather than in his native Croatia, so moving to Belgium was perfect.
“I’ve been impressed with how things are run at VUB. The coordination within the study programme is good, and the guidance you get at VUB is tremendous, and things are generally more organised too at VUB. And of course, the staff: everyone is very approachable. “
Jan explains the work he did on TeamWork: “TeamWork was great fun! We learned how to work together as a team, which from a timing point of view initially wasn’t very easy, as one of the team members was based in India, so we had to coordinate things very well amongst ourselves, but we did well. We got over the initial stress, but then set up a Whatsapp group, and got working. And the results were great; we got things done and everyone was happy. We got some excellent feedback from the organisation as well. It felt like we really did something to help them out.”
Some final words from our two EUTOPIA-students regarding our international students:
Helena: “I’d like to say to my fellow Belgian students: don’t be scared to reach out and contact the international students. Try to participate in as many international events organised by/at the VUB as possible. It’ll give you a taste of the world!”
Jan: “My advice to students is to go for these kind of international experiences that VUB offers. There’s no need to be scared. It’s very enriching, you get to meet so many different people and realise that there are new ways of thinking. It’s definitely worth putting the time and effort into it. I’d do it again. And as to being an international student at VUB: I love it – the whole community bonds together in our study programme; and we would love to meet more local students!”
Happy International Student Day to all our students!
On Friday 15 November you can pick up a wee treat at the Infopunt desk and the international Relations welcome desk – subject to availability of course!
[1] EUTOPIA is an alliance of ten European universities and six global partners committed to developing a new model for integrated higher education institutions through transnational cooperation. More information on the EUTOPIA website: https://eutopia-university.eu/