Floor Keijsers, communication advisor at ESA, set up the pilot with her colleague Marcel Visschers. “We got the idea last year. We know the campus is very big and the new students have to deal with a lot of new info. Many of them therefore go to ESA or the reception desks to ask their questions. This leads to huge queues there day one and this is our way of trying to limit those.” The answers to the most frequently asked questions were provided to the Floor Walkers by the academic advisors and ESA.

Successful

Industrial Design students Guus Röben (on the right in photo) and Pom Smit (on the left in photo), and Industrial Engineering student Tygo Hendricx (in the middle in photo), were the ones that walked around Atlas, Auditorium and Metaforum just before a new lecture started in the first week. They consider the pilot successful. “On Monday, when we arrived, there already was a queue at the reception desk,” says Röben. “We saw those decreased significantly as the week went on. Now, everyone sort of knows where to go.”

This relieved the stress of new students heading to their lectures. “At the start, they were still a bit shy,” says Smit. “I’d see them pull out their phones and look around, so I’d wave to them and help them on their way. We received a lot of great response afterwards, including many thank-yous.”

“They were particularly grateful when, for example, they arrived all sweaty at quarter to nine, while their lectures were already getting underway,” Hendricx adds. “You’re an international student, you just rode your bike to university for the first time, and now you have to find the classroom. Then you’re happy there’s an informal point of contact like us.”

Maze

The most frequently asked questions were about Atlas. “Most people were able to find the building,” Röben says. “But many students got lost because they were on the wrong floor.” The Floor Walkers knew where those students needed to be. “In the basement, but you obviously don’t know that when you just arrived.” What doesn’t help in this respect is that the classrooms in the building aren’t indicated very clearly. “In the timetable, it says the name of the course, with ‘-1’ next to it. But that looks like a normal hyphen, seemingly pointing you toward the first floor.”

New students also struggled navigating their way through the Auditorium. “When you walk into the building, you don’t really see anything. But you do have to choose whether you go upstairs or downstairs,” says Hendricx. To make matters worse, most signs are in Dutch. “If you’re an international student, how are you to know what a collegezaal (lecture room) is?”

All of the apps you need at university make for another maze, a digital one. “There’s Canvas, Osiris, and a new timetable system. That’s pretty complicated. We even had to help a second-year student, because she didn’t know how to get her new timetable.”

Microwave

On Monday, there was even some chaos in Atlas. A group of four hundred students had gathered at a lecture hall, but it was already scheduled for another group. They had received an e-mail from the faculty stating the wrong time. Röben: “Suddenly eight hundred students were standing around the reception in Atlas. That was the busiest time for us.”

Other pressing questions from students were on login details, changing passwords, and picking up the campus card. “One student also asked us a question about his locker. It had fallen shut with his lunch still in there,” says Smit. “And we were also asked where a microwave could be found.”

Like home

Getting around somewhere new is a challenge all students at university will recognize. “It only took me four weeks to feel fairly comfortable here,” says Röben, looking back at his fist year. “That’s how long it takes to find a fun group of people and to know where most things are.”

For Hendricx, it took a bit longer: “Pretty much until just after the Christmas holidays, when you have two periods behind you, followed by some time spent with your friends and family. Upon your arrival back in Eindhoven, you’re immediately surrounded by people with the same interests. Then it starts to feel like home.”