The orientation weeks of Radboud University and HAN will coincide next August. Businesses and student associations, who experienced problems last year because of the busy crowds, are frustrated. ‘Being the first to make reservations will be a struggle again.’

Nina Schouwenaar’s first thought when she heard that the orientation weeks this summer will once again coincide, was ‘shit’. ‘Last year we also had to deal with this’, says the treasurer for the orientation committee at Psychology. ‘And that was really a burden organisationally. Especially for a large study programme such as ours, it is a pity that we once again have to deal with the same problems.’

Similar reactions to the news are emerging from other associations. ‘For some activities, like the pub crawl, it will be really challenging to arrange things now that everything is overcrowded,’ said Bente Huntjens, chair of study association Mundus (Geography, Planning and Environment).

Crowds and discontent

This year, Radboud University’s orientation week takes place from Sunday 20 till Sunday 27 August. During the same week, from Monday 21 till Friday 25 August, HAN University of Applied Sciences is also hosting its orientation week.

‘At the pub crawl last year, the pubs were way too crowded’

For the past two years, the orientation weeks of the educational institutions have coincided. While this worked fine the first year because of covid restrictions, it resulted in a lot of crowds and discontent last year. Several associations ran into issues with their schedules, and businesses were annoyed that students were queuing outside an already overcrowded pub. Residents in the city centre also complained: they told De Gelderlander that they were bothered by junk and illegally parked bicycles.

‘At the pub crawl last year, the bars were way too crowded’, Schouwenaar explains. ‘Pubs did not take us into account. Rather, they thought that more students meant more profit, so it was simply too crowded.’ It also happened that bars booked well in advance still cancelled their reservations. This was the case, among others, with the planned final location of Psychology’s pub crawl. With difficulty, a replacement pub was found for the six hundred freshmen and mentors. ‘The ambience there was not great, causing people to go home earlier.’

Huntjens also noticed that venues did not take students into account. She fears that it will be another struggle to be the first to make reservations for the upcoming orientation week.

Long queues

In turn, pub owners faced long queues at the door and had to turn people away. This prevented new students from getting a good taste of the nightlife scene, says Niek van Dalen, owner of café De Fuik. Thijs Ruhl, co-owner of student café TweeKeerBellen (TKB) agrees. Ruhl: ‘We would prefer that the orientation weeks take place in different weeks. At our pub, we only have room for 150 students in total, which is far too small for so many students at once.’

Despite the discontent, the orientation weeks will still coincide this summer. That has to do with the academic schedule, a spokesperson of Radboud University explains. The university’s orientation week always takes place two weeks before the start of the academic year and the HAN’s one week in advance. For the coming years, the start of the academic year has been scheduled in such a way that the orientation weeks will keep coinciding.

Solutions

But can’t the university or HAN move the orientation week up a week then? According to the university spokesperson, that is not an option. ‘Moving the orientation week up a week is difficult due to finding mentors and housing for international students. We also do not want to push it back a week, because we want to offer students a week to rest between the orientation week and the start of the academic year.’ The HAN also indicates that it is impossible to reschedule the upcoming orientation week. Whether the situation will change in 2024, is unclear (see box below).

‘We’re just going to try to make the best of it’

To still make the best of it in August, solutions are being considered by student associations and pub owners. De Fuik is going to schedule activities in the pub earlier, so that the pub can open later in the evening in time for all new students.

Psychology’s introduction committee is now organising its own big party to make sure there is enough space. ‘We do that off-site, in Doornroosje, but that does mean paying rent for the venue’, says Schouwenaar. ‘Orientation week participants will end up paying for the costs in the form of tickets, and you don’t really want that either. It would of course have been better if the orientation weeks did not coincide, but sadly there is nothing we can do about that now, and we’re just going to try to make the best of it.’

Translated by Jan Scholten