Over 200 international students are arriving this week from every inhabited continent of the world. They start with orientation week. Today: American Payton McNeil, who came to Nijmegen because of its rich history, and to travel around Europe.

Along with a couple of hundred other international students, who just arrived in Nijmegen, Payton McNeil from the USA is attending the orientation week here. He is 20, and comes to study at the Radboud Faculty of Theology.

He shares that it has been an absolute pleasure to meet so many new people who are just like him. ‘I am enjoying the time with his new group, I feel that they are a pleasant company.’ One of the best things about the orientation week, according to him, is meeting students from so many nationalities at the same time and place.

‘My first impression is that there are warm and welcoming people here.’

‘My first impression about Nijmegen was that it is a really historic city, with warm and welcoming people’, McNeil says. Looking at the city planning and the typical Dutch architecture has been really interesting for him, because before, he studied civil engineering.

Students from around the globe choose to study at the Radboud University, for multiple reasons. One of them being its history. McNeil says: ‘Nijmegen has a rich historical background, being the oldest city in the Netherlands. I was also drawn to this city because it has had its geographical importance during the time of World War 2.’

Mumford and Sons
In addition to that, Nijmegen is a small city, in comparison to other Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, but at the same time it is quite lively. So, avoiding the hassles of a metro city and simultaneously enjoying an energetic life is possible here.

Because McNeil is from a different continent, he is looking forward to traveling around the entirety of the European continent. ‘I already have some plans laid out,’ he says, ’to travel to Norway and Ireland’. He is particularly excited about going to some concerts including the one by Mumford and Sons, in Norway, and a few others in Amsterdam.

However, he is also a bit anxious about the transition from the American education system to the European one. All in all, he expects to broaden his outlook about the current world from his study and stay here in the future.