Student
Student life

Wanted: buddy for international students

The winter AID is coming again and that is a reason for the international student organization IxESN a reason to raise alarm: they are looking for buddy mentors that want to guide the new batch of international students in Wageningen.
Linda van der Nat

Photo: Sven Menschel

For the Annual Introduction Days (AID) at the start of the academic year it is never a problem to recruit mentors, but for the winter version in February IxESN has to work hard to find enough people. Every year it is difficult to find enough students who want to support the nearly 150 international students, says buddy coordinator Nikolaas Tilkin-Franssens. ‘A large disadvantage is that we can hardly recruit buddy’s within our organization. IxESN mainly has international members that often only stay several months. Additionally, it is often nicer for international students to be guided by Dutch students, they can usually share more about the Netherlands.’

The enthusiasm for Dutch students to become buddy of a group of international students however is quite low, Nikolaas found. ‘Last week we were also present at the Study Abroad Fair in Forum to recruit students, but only two students signed up. For the Winter AID we need about 20 to 35 mentors. Apparently Dutch students experience a barrier to guide international students. You can also see this in the registrations for mentors for the AID in august. For the mentorgroups of master students it does not go as fast as for the bachelor students.’

This fear is not needed, he emphasizes. ‘It actually is a perfect preparation for your own Erasmus experience and you increase your international network.’ Also the English language should not cause objection, according to Nikolaas. ‘Most of the international students also do not have perfect English.’ Moreover, the buddy task does not have to take up a lot of time. ‘You can invest as much time as you want. Some buddy families eat together, go to parties together, or have excursions to touristic places. Others sometimes have lunch together and that is it.’

The buddy program of IxESN started in 2012. One buddy program generally exists of two to three mentors and about fifteen international students.

Interested to become a buddy? You can sign up through the website:www.ixesn-wageningen.nl/register-buddy-mentor or by emailing buddy@ixesn-wageningen.nl

Lees ook:

Leave a Reply


You must be logged in to write a comment.