Sprint naar content

Going abroad after your studies

Are you considering going abroad after your studies? And are you not yet sure what exactly you would like to do? Maybe you mainly feel that you are ready to do something completely different. To make a choice, it is valuable not only to look ahead, but also to look back. A choice that suits you starts with reflecting on yourself and your experiences so far! This page hopefully helps you with your decision.

Your options

The insights gained from looking back at your study career will help you further in your orientation process. Dare to take your talents, interests and motivations as a starting point for your choice. It is quite understandable that after your studies you feel the need to take a break (for a while). But what exactly can you do when you take a break?

There are a few reasons why travelling during or after your studies is a good idea:

  1. You get to know yourself well (as cliché as it may sound). In daily life, you might spend little time with yourself. During travels, you will encounter unexpected situations and find that you handle them just fine.
  2. This is the ideal moment to go travelling. You probably have relatively few fixed expenses or a job with a set number of vacation days. How often will such a situation present itself?
  3. You gain life experience rapidly. You'll see that you become flexible and unafraid of being thrown into the deep.
  4. You meet new people and cultures. At home, you probably have people around you who mostly face similar choices as you and do roughly the same things. It's super valuable to meet people who organise their lives differently.
  5. Back to basics. Compared to other cultures, we lead a rushed life on autopilot in the Netherlands. By travelling, your life becomes simple again, allowing you to enjoy the little things more.

Look at the range of master's programmes offered abroad. On mastersportal.com you can find masters programmes at educational institutions around the world. Look carefully at costs, length of study and entry requirements.

Scholarships

For graduates of Dutch universities of applied sciences who want to continue studying or doing research abroad, there are the vsbfonds scholarship and the Prince Bernard Culture Fund scholarship.

More about the VSBfonds scholarship More about the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds scholarship
There are several reasons why you might choose to work abroad. You gain life experience, immerse yourself completely in the culture of another country and you are in the ideal situation to learn another language. Of course, the advantage compared to travelling is that you also earn money. You can choose to look for work upon arrival, or to start looking for it just before you leave.
By volunteering abroad, you gain work experience, but you also get the chance to see something of the world while committing to a project that suits you.