Occasionally nice, but always sincere

It was August 17, 2012. After 12 hours (or 16? I transferred at HK)of flight. We (me and Rene, my best Pilipino friend) arrived at Amsterdam. We were quite lucky to have someone picked us up from the airport: Jules and Johan from MSc20. They are one year senior than us; we are MSc21. On our way to Nyenrode campus, we asked all the questions about study, tracks, and ofc, about "Introduction Period"

I received a package from Nyenrode shortly after I decided to take the offer. There is a bunch of documents, including a seemingly weird packing list for "Introduction Period". The items on the list are actually quite normal when they are seen separately; it is the combination of those that makes the whole list very weird. Honestly I didn't even know what those two words combined stand for: I know the word "introduction" and I know the word "period", but seriously I am clueless about "Introduction Period". Therefore, I asked the senior students about it the minute I got the chance, hoping to get some answers. To my surprise, Jules and Johan did not reveal any info! This made me even more nervous about this upcoming "event" and the upcoming 16 months of campus life. At that moment I more or less had the feeling that studying here at Nyenrode may not be as "simple and peaceful" as my previous study at Lancaster.

After we arrived at the campus, we got the key to the room. Unlike other international students flying from abroad, I requested an unfurnished room since I have heard that I could get lots of used furniture for very low prices or even for free when people are moving out. It all sounded very nice and easy and I could really save some money, but when I dragged all my heavy luggage and opened the door to a nearly empty room with only a bed that housing department kindly lend me, I somehow felt a little miserable. I knew this is what I have signed up for: studying abroad means being independent and able to solve problems, both on my own or by finding the right helps. I said to myself, this is it, this could be heaven or this could be hell. It is totally up to me how I want to pave my future 16 moths here. By the way, I lived like a cave person, with only a borrowed bed, for about a week until I got some basic furniture from IKEA. Hail to IKEA!

My name is Yu-Yun Su. I am 28 years old, from Taiwan. I know some Dutch but definitely not enough for business level. I got a job offer in Hoofddorp, and I will be on board in the second week of July

Before sharing my experience about Nyenrode, let me first tell you a little about my background and my life before Nyenrode:

I obtained my first MSc in Accounting & Financial Management at Lancaster University (UK) in 2010. Btw Lancaster is a great school and the program I took- MSc in Finance/Accounting & Financial Management- has moved up one place in the Financial Times global ranking (of 45 pre-experience PG programmes listed this year) to 35th position and is now ranked in the top 10 in the UK this year.

前言

當你收到學校offer，天人交戰(?)決定要去念之後，就可以開始辦簽證了。辦簽證就像大學宿營的大地遊戲一樣，東奔西跑收集到所有需要的文件之後才能遞件申請，個人建議越早開始越好！

現在申請學生簽證一般而言是由學校方面幫留學生提出申請。簡單來說，留學生在台灣收集好所有需要的文件，寄去荷蘭學校，由學校替你向IND遞件提出申請，等IND核准後，他們會通知NTIO，到時候留學生再帶著護照跟一些其他需要文件（詳後面段落）於NTIO台北辦公室受理時間親自前往領件，留下護照及那一堆文件，三個工作天之後就會收到NTIO快遞回來上面多了一張叫做MVV的小貼紙的護照，然後就可以放心飛去荷蘭不怕被遣返了。