One in four internationals quit uni
The dropout
mystery
Door Yuling Chang
By Yuling Chang
Yuling Chang
‘I was lonely. It’s hard to make friends.’ Emina Hogas (22) left Romania to study life science and technology in Groningen, but the whole year she was here, she felt like an outsider.
It wasn’t that she didn’t try to connect with people. She went to a number of events by different associations, but found that Dutch students didn’t bother with her or other internationals. ‘At one event, everybody spoke Dutch except another girl and me.’
The same thing happened in her English-language study programme. ‘We were split into groups, and the students would instantly revert to Dutch’, she says. ‘There wasn’t much integration of international students.’
Moreover, Emina found out that the Dutch education system didn’t suit her. ‘I didn’t like the constant stress of starting a new module. Spending seven weeks in lectures, one week off, exams, and starting the next module a few days later. It just repeats.’
Report
And so, in June, she decided to leave Groningen. Just like many of her peers: according to a report by the Dutch Inspectorate of Education, 17 percent of international students in the Netherlands dropped out in their first year at university between 2011 and 2017. After four years, that number is 25 percent. In comparison, only 6 percent of Dutch students drop out in their first year and 9 percent have dropped out after four years.
Romania
I didn’t like the constant stress of starting a new module
It’s not clear why so many more international than Dutch students drop out. The Inspectorate doesn’t have any answers, although it does note that the percentage of Dutch students who switch to a different programme (28 percent in the first year) is a lot higher than for students from the European Economic Area (EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, 11 percent) or non-EEA students (17 percent).
It stands to reason, the Inspectorate says, that internationals are more likely to switch to a study programme in a different country when they drop out in the Netherlands. And that’s exactly what Emina did. She enrolled at Imperial College London’s biology programme.
‘I passed most of my exams at the UG, but I felt the first year was meant to select suitable students’, she says. The British education system is much more to her liking. ‘We have two semesters every academic year, with one exam period each semester’, she explains. The Dutch academic schedule made her feel like she couldn’t make any mistakes, since the resits are in the next block when new subjects are also discussed.
Different
Andreea Voicu (24), also from Romania, couldn’t adapt to the Dutch system either. ‘I was taught to remember what I’d learned and write it down during the exams.’ So when she sat her first exam at the UG – a statistics course for her psychology programme – she was ‘shocked’, she says. ‘It was just totally different from what I was used to. There were no questions asking for things you’d memorised.’
As a high school student, she used to get good grades for mathematics, but she failed this exam. And before she could get used to this new way of testing, the next exams were coming. ‘I kept failing and it was really upsetting.’
Romania
There were no questions on the exam asking for things you’d memorised
What added to her stress was that she, too, had difficulties making new friends.
The two hundred students in her bachelor programme were divided into study groups. ‘There were ten students in my group, of which seven were German and two were Dutch. They preferred to speak in their own language and I was the only international who didn’t speak German or Dutch.’
Her study association mainly organised parties, she says, and she’s not a party person. ‘So I was sitting in my room for one year, basically.’
Vulnerable
The UG doesn’t know how many of its international students – totaling 9100 this year – drop out, nor why they decide to call it quits. It only keeps track of the total number of dropouts. And those at the university who deal with international students are hesitant to speculate.
‘International students are more vulnerable in many ways compared to Dutch students’, says Hidde de Haas, student advisor at the Faculty of Arts. Some abandon their studies because of the housing shortage, like a German student he talked to. ‘He lived in a van for a while, but when he couldn’t get a room, he left.’ Others, like Emina and Andreea, struggle with the Dutch culture or education system. ‘But there aren’t just one or two reasons why internationals drop out.’
Finland
At times in class, I felt stupid compared to others
There are also those, of course, who quit for the same reasons a Dutch student might: because their study programme just isn’t what they had hoped for.
‘With programmes like mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics, you immediately jump into the subjects in the first block, which is very challenging. It’s quite a shock for some students’, says Diandian Guo, a study advisor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
Difficult
Rosa Koudounis (21) from Finland was also taken aback by how difficult her arts, culture and media programme was. She noticed that some of her classmates already had background knowledge that she didn’t have. ‘At times in class, I felt stupid compared to others.’
Deciding to drop out after six months was hard for her. ‘I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, even though it was a big challenge.’ But then she realised that she wasn’t actually interested in the type of profession her degree qualified her for. ‘I could work for a museum or a music company. I might be a supporter of the artists, but I wanted to be an artist myself.’
She now studies photography at Noorderpoort College in Groningen and doesn’t have any regrets, she says. ‘I tried it, and I failed.’
As for Andreea, she also switched to a different school. She now studies communication and multimedia design at Hanze University of Applied Sciences. ‘Their education system suits me a lot better. I call the teachers by their first names instead of their title and surname’, she says. ‘And I made a good friend at the open day. Those things just give me a sense of belonging and that motivates me to keep studying.’