Patru Andrei Alexandru; Bachelor student in ICT (1st year)

After reading the Nuffic brochure, and consulting the internet sites of some universities in Holland , I sent my file to Fontys, and in 1½ months I received a confirmation of positive assessment of my file. I decided afterwards to accept their study offer, and in August I left for Holland . The very first impression was very much a good one: all the buildings looked new, there was no litter on the street, everything was clean, two high-rise buildings dominating the sky-view.

I started to find a new and interesting country, the likes of which I had not seen before. The good impressions seemed to come naturally in this city and I was pleasantly surprised by the many things this city had to offer: a sports centre, a clean city with lots of parks, a different human mentality and a well kept school with a good teaching method.

The first weeks I got to meet a lot of people: teachers and colleagues, and made a lot of friends. This was also something nice, because when you are thousands of miles away from home, friends are the closes thing to family you might have. The introduction day was also nicely planned and we got to do a lot of team activities which helped us bond as a student community. We also had the chance to enter different student groups and organizations, which I did.

Afterwards, when school started, I found the courses to be well taught, in a friendly atmosphere and the teachers always opened to questions from students. This makes a big difference in the educational system, as you might not find something like this in your normal university. If you have a question there, you make an appointment to the teacher's assistant and if you are lucky you might be able to ask that question. The first set of exams went well and hopefully the next ones will go as well.

The good sides are that the university is located in a city with good career possibilities, being the home of Philips Electronics, DAF trucks and being near Veldhoven, home of ASML. Also, the fact that Holland is a leading country in technology ads a lot to the future prospects of having a job in the IT department.

Furthermore, the system of education at Fontys is very different than what you would expect at a university. Classes are taught to small groups of students, rather than lectures in front of hundreds of students, the teachers are friendly and close to the students, always welcoming questions even outside the class hours. I find this to be a more efficient way of teaching, because students learn a lot more. Besides this, theory goes hand in hand with practice, thus preparing us for the real world, where practice is valued first hand.

Being a student at Fontys also gives you discounts on laptops. The notebookprojecten.nl site was very useful as I managed to get a very good laptop at a reasonable price, and also a couple of accessories for it. It came to my house with a UPS van with no delay in about 10 days from ordering it from the internet.

The bad sides, also mentioned above are the fact that the competition between students can be kicked up a notch by making the admission procedure more demanding. Furthermore, I realized that it is hard, if not impossible to subscribe to a minor. So, if you would like to learn a new language while you are studying (especially Dutch) and you are in the IT English course, you cannot do that. One of the reasons seems to be that all minors are scheduled on Wednesday and only classes from the Dutch course have that day free.

In conclusion, I do think that Fontys has been a good pick for me, even though it might have a couple of down sides. The study course in IT seems to be a good choice for study, not only because it is a subject that interests me, but also because it is a demanded job in the work market. I hope I will be able to finish Fontys with excellent results and afterwards enjoy having a good job, a nice life and lots of friends from all corners of the world.