This Weeks College: The University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Founded in 1614, The University of Groningen often finds itself on the Top 100 Universities in the World. This large, public university is in Groningen, The Netherlands where students make up 25% of the population of the city. With about 27,000 students (about 7,000 are international) and almost all classes taught in English, students can choose from 45 different programs of study (and within those 45 programs are multiple tracks). In addition, there is also an Honors College and over 160 Masters programs which you will also take advantage of as well.
The European system of higher education is different from ours. For the first three years you will work on your Bachelor’s degree at Groningen. That will mean studying one of those 45 programs that you choose, pretty much from Day 1. Unlike in the US where being undecided is just fine, at Groningen you’ll decide early on what you want to study, say Artificial Intelligence, Global Responsibility and Leadership, International and European Law, Global Health, Minorities and Multilingualism, Arts, Culture, and Media, or Spatial Planning and Design to name a few. After you complete that you can pick up a Master’s degree that you spend one to three years on depending on the need for the length of study or the depth of study you plan to engage in. That’s where you’ll go on to study something like Social Networks i a Sustainable Society, Innovative Medicine, Global Criminal Law, Nanoscience, or Population Studies.
Students who go to Groningen are serious about their learning. As a student at RUG (stands for Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the name in Dutch), you will decide what classes you want to take and not take. You will be provided a Study Advisor, someone who knows the program you’ve chosen and can help you navigate it, but you’re pretty much going to need to be independent and motivated to keep on track here.
In the Dutch system, a lot of value is placed in independence, teamwork, and also on individual thought and opinions backed up with evidence. You will be expected to be able to hold your own in a discussion and in a group. Everyone is expected to pull their own weight in a group here. You know those group projects where you learned to “Trust No One?” Yeah. Not here. The job of faculty here is to give you the information you need. But your job is to process it, synthesize it, and analyze it to make it your own knowledge. This isn’t a repeat what the Professor tells you place. And it’s not a “guess what’s in my head” place either. If you’re not ready to think critically, this is not a good place for you. If you are, you will be in heaven.
The academic year is divided into four quarters of 10 weeks each. Class structure varies from the tutorial which is a seminar style class to the lecture class which we often imagine when we think of large schools. Lecture classes range in size from 30-450 depending on the subject (something like Physics or Art History will likely be on the large end of that). The tutorials will have more open discussion and will usually require papers or exams that reflect the activity of the class. One huge difference between Groningen and colleges in the US is that there is no grade inflation and it is possible not to pass exams. If this happens, students can retake them as often as they like until they do pass.
The credit system is also different in Europe. One academic year in Europe is made up of 60 European Credit Transfer System Credits. In the Netherlands, an academic calendar is 42 weeks of work with 40 hours of work per week considered full time. That means a total of 1,680 hours of work per year. Basically those 60 credits are worth 28 hours of work each. So for a class work 5 ECTS credits, you’ll do about 140 hours of work. It’s a lot. It’s more than most US schools that are not on the highly selective level. But then, when you are in the Top 100 in the world, you basically are in the highly selective level. The thing to bear in mind though about how this whole ECTS credits thing works is that if you decide to go to do “Study Abroad” Abroad (like at Trinity, or Alcala de Hénares) those credits transfer seamlessly because they also issue ECTS credits.
For first years, you must follow what they call Binding Study Advice. You must earn 45 of the 60 ECTS credits for that year in order to stay on in Groningen. If you do not do this, you will be discontinued. But your program monitors you pretty carefully and will bring you into the Study Advisor before it gets to this point.
Groningen has an Honors College as well for students who are ready to take on more challenge. It begins after the first half of your first year. Students are invited to apply to it. It has two components to it. It allows students to take classes that are more rigorous, but it also allows students to explore their discipline more in depth as well, so there is both a broadening and a deepening of knowledge, which for gifted students is really the gold standard.
Applying to the University of Groningen is also a very different experience. They do not accept SATs or ACTs. Your GPA must be between 3.0 and 4.0. Since they are dealing with students who have completed final year exams in a variety of disciplines they want four AP tests, or an Associate’s Degree and a diploma (same GPA for both), or one year towards a Bachelor’s degree and six honors/advanced classes the last two years of high school with GPA for both 3.0-4.0. For the medical sciences they specify the APs they want students to have taken (Calc AB or BC, Physics 1 or C, Chem and Bio), for individual sciences and math there is a combo of Calc and the sciences related. Remember you will apply to the program, not to RUG as a whole.
What’s it like to be in Groningen? It’s a gorgeous small city where everyone has a bike and the bikes always seem to have the right of way. There are possibly one million bikes in front of the main building on campus 24 hours a day and it’s perfectly fine to leave them unlocked if you like. RUG does not provide housing so students so most students live in private homes or places owned by others. These vary wildly from rooms in a house, to an apartment with friends, to house boats. The university does work with a not for profit agency SSH for their international and PhD students to reserve housing in their units. Students should sign up as soon as possible for their housing so they can get in. But finding a place to stay in Groningen is actually part of the fun of living there. If ever there were a college town, this was it.
RUG has a terrific museum and many of the arts students take advantage of it. For the four hundredth birthday of the university the school completed a 20 year sculpture project around the city for its inhabitants to enjoy as well. The Groningen Museum is also tremendous for a city of its size. The city is also home to theaters, cinemas, and to the Noordenplantsoen which is converted into a huge Performing Arts Festival Noorderzon each year, and in January the Eurosonic Noorderslag brings music into all corners of the city.
Of course it wouldn’t be the Netherlands without plenty of sports as well. With the canals so close at hand, crew is a huge thing in Groningen and a lot of people enjoy it as a mainstay sport with a yearly regatta called the Varsity. Speed Skating is a passion here (of course, given the Dutch powerhouses in the Olympics) and in fact Groningen is one of the towns on the 11 Town Race although it hasn’t been cold enough to hold that canal race in some years. Football (soccer to you) is also a super popular past time as is underwater hockey (seriously).
Is Groningen for you? Are you driven, passionate about what you do, and ready to take on some serious challenge? Then it definitely is. Are you open minded and international in your outlook? Ready for an adventure? This could be it for you. But if you still need some hand holding and some help making your way, I’d steer clear.
Pros:
Cons:
Founded in 1614, The University of Groningen often finds itself on the Top 100 Universities in the World. This large, public university is in Groningen, The Netherlands where students make up 25% of the population of the city. With about 27,000 students (about 7,000 are international) and almost all classes taught in English, students can choose from 45 different programs of study (and within those 45 programs are multiple tracks). In addition, there is also an Honors College and over 160 Masters programs which you will also take advantage of as well.
The European system of higher education is different from ours. For the first three years you will work on your Bachelor’s degree at Groningen. That will mean studying one of those 45 programs that you choose, pretty much from Day 1. Unlike in the US where being undecided is just fine, at Groningen you’ll decide early on what you want to study, say Artificial Intelligence, Global Responsibility and Leadership, International and European Law, Global Health, Minorities and Multilingualism, Arts, Culture, and Media, or Spatial Planning and Design to name a few. After you complete that you can pick up a Master’s degree that you spend one to three years on depending on the need for the length of study or the depth of study you plan to engage in. That’s where you’ll go on to study something like Social Networks i a Sustainable Society, Innovative Medicine, Global Criminal Law, Nanoscience, or Population Studies.
Students who go to Groningen are serious about their learning. As a student at RUG (stands for Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the name in Dutch), you will decide what classes you want to take and not take. You will be provided a Study Advisor, someone who knows the program you’ve chosen and can help you navigate it, but you’re pretty much going to need to be independent and motivated to keep on track here.
In the Dutch system, a lot of value is placed in independence, teamwork, and also on individual thought and opinions backed up with evidence. You will be expected to be able to hold your own in a discussion and in a group. Everyone is expected to pull their own weight in a group here. You know those group projects where you learned to “Trust No One?” Yeah. Not here. The job of faculty here is to give you the information you need. But your job is to process it, synthesize it, and analyze it to make it your own knowledge. This isn’t a repeat what the Professor tells you place. And it’s not a “guess what’s in my head” place either. If you’re not ready to think critically, this is not a good place for you. If you are, you will be in heaven.
The academic year is divided into four quarters of 10 weeks each. Class structure varies from the tutorial which is a seminar style class to the lecture class which we often imagine when we think of large schools. Lecture classes range in size from 30-450 depending on the subject (something like Physics or Art History will likely be on the large end of that). The tutorials will have more open discussion and will usually require papers or exams that reflect the activity of the class. One huge difference between Groningen and colleges in the US is that there is no grade inflation and it is possible not to pass exams. If this happens, students can retake them as often as they like until they do pass.
The credit system is also different in Europe. One academic year in Europe is made up of 60 European Credit Transfer System Credits. In the Netherlands, an academic calendar is 42 weeks of work with 40 hours of work per week considered full time. That means a total of 1,680 hours of work per year. Basically those 60 credits are worth 28 hours of work each. So for a class work 5 ECTS credits, you’ll do about 140 hours of work. It’s a lot. It’s more than most US schools that are not on the highly selective level. But then, when you are in the Top 100 in the world, you basically are in the highly selective level. The thing to bear in mind though about how this whole ECTS credits thing works is that if you decide to go to do “Study Abroad” Abroad (like at Trinity, or Alcala de Hénares) those credits transfer seamlessly because they also issue ECTS credits.
For first years, you must follow what they call Binding Study Advice. You must earn 45 of the 60 ECTS credits for that year in order to stay on in Groningen. If you do not do this, you will be discontinued. But your program monitors you pretty carefully and will bring you into the Study Advisor before it gets to this point.
Groningen has an Honors College as well for students who are ready to take on more challenge. It begins after the first half of your first year. Students are invited to apply to it. It has two components to it. It allows students to take classes that are more rigorous, but it also allows students to explore their discipline more in depth as well, so there is both a broadening and a deepening of knowledge, which for gifted students is really the gold standard.
Applying to the University of Groningen is also a very different experience. They do not accept SATs or ACTs. Your GPA must be between 3.0 and 4.0. Since they are dealing with students who have completed final year exams in a variety of disciplines they want four AP tests, or an Associate’s Degree and a diploma (same GPA for both), or one year towards a Bachelor’s degree and six honors/advanced classes the last two years of high school with GPA for both 3.0-4.0. For the medical sciences they specify the APs they want students to have taken (Calc AB or BC, Physics 1 or C, Chem and Bio), for individual sciences and math there is a combo of Calc and the sciences related. Remember you will apply to the program, not to RUG as a whole.
What’s it like to be in Groningen? It’s a gorgeous small city where everyone has a bike and the bikes always seem to have the right of way. There are possibly one million bikes in front of the main building on campus 24 hours a day and it’s perfectly fine to leave them unlocked if you like. RUG does not provide housing so students so most students live in private homes or places owned by others. These vary wildly from rooms in a house, to an apartment with friends, to house boats. The university does work with a not for profit agency SSH for their international and PhD students to reserve housing in their units. Students should sign up as soon as possible for their housing so they can get in. But finding a place to stay in Groningen is actually part of the fun of living there. If ever there were a college town, this was it.
RUG has a terrific museum and many of the arts students take advantage of it. For the four hundredth birthday of the university the school completed a 20 year sculpture project around the city for its inhabitants to enjoy as well. The Groningen Museum is also tremendous for a city of its size. The city is also home to theaters, cinemas, and to the Noordenplantsoen which is converted into a huge Performing Arts Festival Noorderzon each year, and in January the Eurosonic Noorderslag brings music into all corners of the city.
Of course it wouldn’t be the Netherlands without plenty of sports as well. With the canals so close at hand, crew is a huge thing in Groningen and a lot of people enjoy it as a mainstay sport with a yearly regatta called the Varsity. Speed Skating is a passion here (of course, given the Dutch powerhouses in the Olympics) and in fact Groningen is one of the towns on the 11 Town Race although it hasn’t been cold enough to hold that canal race in some years. Football (soccer to you) is also a super popular past time as is underwater hockey (seriously).
Is Groningen for you? Are you driven, passionate about what you do, and ready to take on some serious challenge? Then it definitely is. Are you open minded and international in your outlook? Ready for an adventure? This could be it for you. But if you still need some hand holding and some help making your way, I’d steer clear.
Pros:
- Low tuition compared to US schools (around €10,000/year)
- Rigorous education
- International experience
- Great city
Cons:
- Specialized from Day 1
- Requires independence and self motivation
- Far away
- Not traditional
- Hard work