TU/e finds it very important that its students gain international experience during a course or internship abroad, it says in the study guide. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has put a spanner in the works. A note ‘Proceeding with exchange during the first semester 2020/2021’ was drafted and will be discussed by several consultative bodies this week. “The aim is for the Executive Board to make a final decision on the matter next Friday, May 28," says Inge Adriaans, Policy manager Internationalization at TU/e. "Students and partner universities will be informed about this decision in the first weeks of June,”

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) has made a decision already: students won’t be able to travel abroad for an exchange after the summer holidays. Conversely, exchange students can’t travel to the UvA in the first semester. That decision was taken “in close consultation with the other Dutch universities,” even though most other institutions haven’t made an announcement yet. But the decision, obviously, didn’t come out of the blue.

Keen on travelling

Even students who are most keen on travelling will probably think twice before they book a ticket or rent a room at this stage. This academic year, practically all exchange programs were cancelled prematurely (or continued online) due to the corona crisis. Over one hundred TU/e students more or less rushed back to Eindhoven in March.

National Agency Erasmus+ made inquiries at the international offices of 36 applied sciences and 12 research universities in the period between 18 April and 18 May. During those weeks, almost half of these institutions considered cancelling their exchange programs in the first semester of the new academic year. It seems unlikely that this number will have decreased.

Blended mobility

That is why the search for alternatives in underway. Eighty percent is positive about alternative programs such as blended mobility, a project in which students first follow online courses and travel abroad only once the coast is clear.

The deans of TU/e’s Bachelor College and Graduate School asked the program directors to come up with long-term alternative forms of the International Exchange program. Adriaans: “Many others forms are conceivable, apart from blended mobility, and developing alternative forms of exchange takes time.”

Erasmus+ spokesperson Jeroen Wienen acknowledges that blended mobility is far from ideal. “But its advantage is that you still spend time in an international classroom with other students, at a foreign institution with an entirely different educational culture than ours. That too can be an informative experience. And there’s the hope that after some time, you get to travel abroad after all.”

Erasmus scholarship

Can you get a scholarship for such a program? You probably can, but how much exactly remains unclear for now. The amount of the grant usually depends on your destination (cheap country? Lower scholarship!). When students are forced to follow a foreign program from their own country, the costs will be lower: there won’t be any travel expenses and extra accommodation costs. A decision from Brussels is expected later this month.

The photo shows Maxine Theeuwes and Jan Biert, who studied abroad exactly one year ago, and wrote about it in Cursor's column 'And how are things in'.