Photo:Remo Wormmeester
It is going to be a long day, said Renske van Dijk from Information and Recruitment. They had constant live presentations from eight thirty in the morning until quarter past eight in the evening, on all the Wageningen Masters, from International Land & Water management to Geo-information sciences. Students, mainly internationals, programme directors, teachers and student councillors talked in a talk show-like setting about the content of their study, the specializations and the job opportunities. Additionally, through an app on Twitter short videos were shared about life on campus and there were about five students answering pressing questions about studying in Wageningen through a live chat.
Wageningen works hard on international recruitment, Van Dijk shared, who often travels abroad to visit conventions and universities. ‘Worldwide we have a wide network of local representatives who promote Wageningen, but we also want to bring Wageningen to the students. For a student from China or America it is not easy to come to an open day on campus, but during the online open day they can get a good image of what Wageningen has to offer. Above all they have a good place where students can ask questions.
We want to bring Wageningen to the students
Renske van Dijk
The first edition of the online open day, in November, offered a general picture of studying in Wageningen: how much is the tuition, where do I need to sign up, what are the admission requirements. Van Dijk: ‘The content was lacking, and that is exactly what master students are looking for. They want to decide what they want to study, then they want to know more about the registration procedure.’
Eight hundred people had signed up for the open day. Van Dijk said: ‘We cannot verify if all these people are also watching the show, but we constantly see that about eighty people are following the Master presentations.’ For each presentation there were about ten chat sessions.