The new issue of Vox magazine is all about internationalisation. Is Nijmegen ready for all the international students, PhD’s and staff? Where do people find solace for their homesickness? And how does the partner of an employee feel when he or she is dragged to our city?

Radboud University students are more and more likely to come from abroad. With thirteen international bachelor programmes and more to come soon, this trend is likely to continue. For 2018, the university expects that 15.5 percent of its student population will be international.

Is Nijmegen ready for them? Two Spanish students, one German and one French student tried to find out. The students were given tasks to complete: Borrow a book by Hella Haasse from the city library,  apply for a citizen service number (BSN) at the Town Hall. Or: Buy a smoked sausage at the HEMA. It appears to be hard sometimes, if you don’t speak Dutch.

Vitalgebäck

Where do international students go after graduation? Most of them leave Nijmegen, as apparent from new figures. Five years after their studies, a big part of them don’t live in Nijmegen anymore.

Couples who have been here for a much longer time because one of them (or both of them) works at Radboud University, tell about living in Nijmegen. ‘We’ve watched the city grow more attractive with the years’, says Dean Christopher Lüthy, who moved here twenty years ago with his wife Carla Rita Palmerino.

One thing that made Nijmegen more international this year? The karaoke bar! International students go there to sing like it is done everywhere in the world.

If they do get homesick, there are places in Nijmegen to go to. Spanish people can drink a cortado at Fingerz lunchroom, Italians can eat at the Donders Canteen and Germans can buy a Vitalgebäck at Aldi. Three internationals speak about their ‘piece of home’ in Nijmegen.

Integration

In spite of all of this, there still is a lot to be done. International students find it hard to make friends with Dutch people, even though many of them do want to. One of them told Vox: ‘A lot of Dutch students know each other from their Bachelor’s programme and they talk Dutch to each other during breaks. I don’t want to bother them by interrupting, so I spend all my breaks listening without understanding a word of what they’re saying.’
Student associations are hesitant to switch to English and speaking English in the university council is still a bridge too far.

All of this, and more, can be found in the new Vox magazine, that can be found online or on campus today afternoon.