New apartmentsTimpaan, a property development company, plans to build 200 new student apartments on the site of the Pauwmolen business park in Delft.
Most of the housing complex’s apartments will contain two rooms and a small bathroom. Some apartments will be larger, however, so that students can live in groups or also use their apartments as offices for new start-up companies. The building work is expected to begin in 2011 and be completed by late 2012 or early 2013.
Less interest The information day held last month for prospective BSc students was slightly less well-attended than the previous year, when a record 3,217 Dutch high school seniors toured the campus. This year 3,057 students made the trip to Delft, a drop of 5 percent. It is however too early to say whether this will also translate into a 5 percent drop in new enrolments at TU Delft, says Corien Sluis, of TU Delft’s marketing department: “But it is a good indication, although other issues also play a role.”
Minor decisionsIt’s that time of year again, when approximately 1,500 students must choose their minor subjects for the coming academic year. On Monday 26 April a special minor information session will be held at the Aula Congress Centre, and already some 600 students have registered to take part. Students can visit the information market and join faculty presentations on the minors. Once they have decided on a minor, the students then enrol via the minor registration system. Registration is open from 3 May to 31 May 2010. A Master Information Event will also be held on Thursday 22 April for third-year BSc students and fourth-year students in higher professional education. Study advisors, MSc students and coordinators will be on hand to answer questions and offer in-depth information about TU Delft’s various degree programmes.
Self-awareOnly one-third of all Dutch university students plan to search for jobs immediately following graduation. The rest will wait until they find the ideal job: that is, a job that offers training and career development opportunities and a sufficient number of vacation days. These findings come from a survey conducted by Talentive, an organisational consultancy firm, and were published in Trouw newspaper. Researcher Frits Korten was quoted in Trouw as saying: “We call these students Generation Y: those born between 1975 and 1990. A characteristic of this generation is their powers of estimation: they are extremely self-aware and know what they are worth.” And according to Korten, these students can afford to be critical, because soon much of the baby-boomer generation will retire: “Companies must therefore do their best to recruit these graduates.”
Travel firstDutch high school students are now more likely to take a year off to travel before heading to university or polytechnics, according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Ten years ago, more than 90 percent of all high school students went directly into higher education after graduating from high school. But since then, that figure has continuously dropped. In 2008, less than 83 percent of these students immediately enrolled in higher education programmes.
No matesThe UK is currently hosting the annual ‘Shine! – International Student Awards’, which were started in 2002 to showcase the contributions international students make to their university communities. For this year’s competition, students had to write a ‘letter home’ in English about their non-academic achievements in the UK. Everardo Gutiérrez-Enríquez, from Mexico, and a student at the University of Huddersfield, wrote in this letter that when he started his studies he was definitely a ‘Billy no mates’ but that he then got involved in on-campus societies and his social life changed. ‘I’m so very popular and as happy as a pig in mud’, he wrote. Zengguo Jin, an international student at the University of Southampton, wrote that she’s different, because ‘most Chinese students don’t normally take part in societies and talk to British people, because they’re too shy’, while adding that ‘it’s not the British who think Chinese students’ English is poor; it’s the Chinese who think their English is poor.’ This year’s Shine award winner will be announced on 22 April.
‘De kans op een ramp met een goederentrein met gevaarlijke stoffen is in Nederland een op de 200 duizend.’ Dat zegt de Delftse hoogleraar veiligheid en rampenbestrijding prof.dr.ir. Ben Ale (TBM) deze week in het Algemeen Dagblad als reactie op het Italiaanse treinongeluk dinsdagnacht. Daar kwamen veertien mensen om het leven in een vuurzee toen een lpg-trein ontspoorde in een woonwijk van Viareggio.
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