You might think there’s nothing to do on campus during the summer holiday, but hundreds of students will come to the third edition of the Radboud Summer School. ‘Dutch students can experience internationalization at home.’

For the third year, Radboud University will open its doors during the summer months for the Radboud Summer School. Students from all over the world come to Nijmegen during the first two weeks of August. They can take courses on all sorts of topics: from optics and lasers to human rights in a global perspective.

International lecturers
This year, not only the students will be international. ‘Lecturers from our partner universities will come to the Summer School,’ explains Alice Nieboer, coordinator of the Radboud Summer School. ‘By inviting them, we want to make the Summer School more attractive for Dutch students, so they can experience internationalization at home. We also want to put the Dutch students into contact with internationals this way.’ Those lecturers bring new areas of expertise that should appeal to Nijmegen students, such as a course on localizing human rights by the University of Antwerp.

Nieboer is happy with the amount of registrations so far. ‘About 400 people have signed up, which is in line with our expectations. And unlike last year, most attendees have already confirmed and paid.’ The majority of students come from abroad, and not just Germany or Belgium: ‘we have people coming from all over the world, from Iran to the United States.’ Most still come from European countries, with especially large groups from the UK.

The Radboud Summer School offers 40 courses in a wide range of fields, from culture to healthcare and from psychology to law. Sign-up is possible until June 15, and Radboud students get a fifteen percent discount on the course fees.  / Timo Nijssen