MomenTUm did not take place on campus this year, for obvious reasons, and a new date for a Bachelor graduation ceremony during which fifteen hundred diplomas will be awarded hasn’t been established yet. Students who will continue with a Master’s program at TU/e receive information about this via the Executive Board updates. However, 349 students won’t continue their studies here. Where can these students who are about to say farewell to the Eindhoven university turn to for information?

Joline Frens wishes she knew the answer. She sent Cursor an email with a distress call: “I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design last February and started with a Master’s program in Leiden and Delf in September. I haven’t heard anything from TU/e since February, which means that I also wasn’t informed about the fact that MomenTUm wouldn’t take place. Naturally, I had assumed that this would be the case, but now what? I decided to send the university a mail to ask them about my diploma. After having been referred a couple of times, I was told that a ceremony might take place in October. I haven’t heard anything since, nor did anyone reply to my mails.”

“My moment”

Frens is truly upset about this course of events. “If I hadn’t actively looked for information, I wouldn’t have known that MomenTUm had been cancelled, that a livestream had been organized in its place, that a possible diploma ceremony had been scheduled for October, only to be cancelled again. I still don’t know anything, because I don’t get the Executive Board updates, from which my friends get their information. And all this when it’s about my MomenTUm for my diploma ceremony.”

Director Education and Student Affairs Patrick Groothuis is unhappy for Frens. “The starting point when it comes to communication from the Executive Board these last few months has been to send as much information to as many students and employees as possible. That’s done integrally instead of fragmentated, and up-to-date files of students and employees are used. Because it usually involves news that’s most relevant to these target groups. That is why alumni aren’t included,” he replies via email. “Normally, students like Frens would be informed via the program.”

Exceptional situation

Industrial Engineering didn’t inform its former students either, and Computer Science did so only partially. Joachim van Schothorst obtained a Bachelor’s degree at both programs and continues his Master’s program in Rotterdam. “The last notice I received was a mail from Computer Science on September the 29th informing me that they were looking into the possibilities for an award ceremony; it also included a link to a report about this from Cursor.” Unlike Frens, Van Schothorst fully understands this course of events. “I understand it, in this corona situation.”

Next Monday, the department of Industrial Design will tackle the issue of comminution on diploma ceremonies to alumni Bachelors.