Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam — Attraction in Amsterdam

Discrimination and racism, misleading and unfair assessors in the Educational field! (in the VU, Amsterdam).

I followed MPA master (Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health and Life Sciences) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from September 2017 till March 2020. It was the worst and most disgusting and discriminating educational experience for me in my life. Also, the junior teachers of some work groups (RMCP, AGP, and COM) were really beginners, unprofessional, rude, and I do not know how did they finish their bachelor and master study!.

You can find my experiences regarding each course of this Master below.

1. RMCP (Research Methods for Analyzing Complex Problems) and AGP (Analysis of Governmental Policy):

The workgroup junior teacher of the RMCP and AGP courses did very weird and bad behavior with me, then she tried to fail me in the AGP and RMCP courses with the assist from some bad racist students in the group although I communicated with them in a very good, professional and polite way. 5% of the grade to pass this course was depended on the private feedback from other students in the workgroup. At the end of this course, I got shocked by an email from the junior teacher that I did not pass this course because the feedback grade was insufficient, although I passed the exam. When I asked her about the reason, she asked me to contact the course coordinators who said because of communication. Although they had not told me anything that I should change during the project.

2. Communication, Organization and Management (COM):

The workgroup junior teacher of this course (COM) was a very bad. Additionally, she was a friend of the previous junior teacher of the RMCP and AGP who told her everything. So, from the first Work group lecture she was looking at me in a very bad way. Therefore, I went to the master coordinator and told her about this behaviour. The master coordinator told me that she will talk to her.

In the next lectures this bad junior teacher increased her bad attitude and tried in a clear, stupid, and disgusting way to trigger my work group to be racist against me. Additionally, she was always asking the students weird and stupid racist questions that were not related to the subject.

In the next year this bad junior teacher became the coordinator of the internships.

Additionally, after I finished all courses of the MPA master and my internships, this internship coordinator ignored me and did not send my internship result to the student desk to graduate till July instead of March. And when I asked her she answered she will make it retroactively as I graduated in March 2020 instead of July 2020.

3. Science in Dialogue

The lecturer of this course was a racist and unprofessional. My work group members in this course were mostly from other European countries. The bad lecturer tried to influence them to be coward racists like him but he did not succeed fortunately.

4. Internship 2:

The topic of this internship was regarding engaging patient in the medicine development life cycle. The supervisors were trying to make traps for me through emails and other ways and acting in a very weird way. Additionally, the supervisor was replying very late to my emails trying to put me in pressure. Furthermore, the assessor of my presentation could not find any reason to fail me in the presentation so he created a reason that the results are not enough although some students who presented before me did not finish the half of the results so they considered it preliminary and he let them pass. After finishing the presentation session. I asked him when I will repeat the presentation? he pretended as busy and suddenly answered me in Dutch instead of English and said I cannot speak Turkish (although I am not Turkish and he knows that!). But then I understood that he is a...

I have spent most of my time as a students at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in the program of International Business Administration. Many improvements have been made during my time there, especially in management and the course content of the program. Besides that, there are more options for self-service via VU-net. The information is not always accessible in a way that is straightforward, but it is easy to find the right person that is actually knowledgeable. The VU could be more professional, and be more helpful, but staff and professors have a high work load and conflicting priorities such as becoming prestigious researchers, teaching and having a good time. The facilities are good and I found the VU a very friendly environment. They want you to succeed, so there are always ways outside the systems to solve a problem. The international office has been excellent in dealing with all the exchange communication, especially given that there are many partner universities of the VU. The VU is all about teamwork, which is challenging, and also about individual work ethics. I love most that there are active communities of people that you can see everywhere, at events, the sports center and the Uilenstede campus. And of course the international environment, having the opportunity to meet so many...

Not great for international students. Unfair grading even by the grading criteria, subtle priority for Dutch and European students in classes and assignments, you get ghosted if you ask for the reasoning behind the feedback or grade you got, and other such injustices. One professor sat silent while a gang of Dutch students openly mocked me while I was speaking during a small meeting. She later berated me via email for standing up for myself, but still had no words for the bullying that happened right in front of her. This kind of professor somehow also got a university magazine award for best professor here. Communication and information studies is also a terrible choice. There’s no scope for individual development because all classes force you to do group assignments and finally you are not even allowed to choose your own bachelor’s thesis topic. They will put you in a group for a topic they have selected.

The housing is also a complete disaster. They left me with no housing for the first three months even though they took an exorbitant housing fee. And you are on your own for housing after your first year. They won’t provide anything. Student associations can be isolating if you’re an international. Not enough university social events and communication to ease international students into a...