After the TU/e: return or keep turning?

Now that the year has almost ended, several foreign AIO’s and TWAIO’s (trainee research assistants) are also facing the end of their period at this university. How do they look back on the past few years and what are their plans for the future? For José Melo, Jean-Charles Cigal and Oriol Margo one thing is clear: anyone who moves abroad at some point, acquires a taste for travelling.

Illustration: Jeannette Bos

How he sees his future? Jean-Charles Cigal does not have to reflect long. “I want to leave the country, move back to the south.” Five years ago the Parisian first came to Eindhoven. “In 1997 I did the final project for my Master’s degree here. I really wanted to go abroad, and my professor had contacts here. Later I decided to come back to attain my doctorate.” Cigal particularly liked the working method at Eindhoven’s university. “In comparison with France you are very independent here. You don’t just do what the professor says; there is a lot of room for initiative. I changed my design completely and was supported by my professor. That would be difficult in France.”
Cigal speaks Dutch and has a number of Dutch friends. Then why does he want to leave the country that much? “I miss the culture and the people from the south. It is probably because I am ‘Latin’. Dutchmen don’t understand, for instance, how important it is for us to eat well.” His predilection for the south does not imply a return to Paris, though. On the contrary: he wants to stay on the move for as long as he can: “My goal is broader than work only, I want more. You learn so much by meeting people from other cultures, by discussing things with them. I have been able to adapt fairly well here, and I think that I can live just about anywhere now. In Italy, for instance.”

A rich life
Cigal’s story is exemplary: anyone who moves abroad at some point, acquires a taste for travelling. TWAIO José Melo, who comes from Lisbon, shares that experience. “Almost everybody in my group has the same feeling: they come here and they don’t want to go back to their native country anymore. Living abroad is not that difficult, as long as you’ve got some friends.” Melo always wanted to study abroad. When he was within sight of the two-year design engineer’s programme in Eindhoven, he seized the opportunity. He speaks of his first year with a big smile. “You come here alone and the people you work with become your friends, almost like family. In Portugal I lived with my parents, here I lived in a student residence. We have gone out together a great deal. It was a very rich life, and I’ve learned a lot.”
As his studies end in December, Melo is looking for a job. A return to Portugal is not an option for the time being. “When I came here, I intended to go back after two years. I was a bit frightened. Now that I have discovered that it is so easy to work abroad, I am even prepared to leave Europe.”
TWAIO Oriol Margo from Barcelona also graduates in December. In 2000 he came to Eindhoven as an Erasmus student to finish his studies, after which he decided to stay longer. He applied for a two-year trainee research assistant function and enjoyed another two years of his life abroad. “I would never have made the step at once to live abroad for several years”, he says. “In the beginning you don’t know what it will be like.” However, what the Spaniard found here pleased him very much. The independence of his parents, for one, but also the chance to see more of Europe. “The Netherlands is more central than Spain, so I had more opportunities for travelling and meeting people from all over the world. I was able to improve my English. If I had stayed in Barcelona, I would have worked for a local company and led a life with much more routine. I am not yet ready for that routine.”

Tornado
Broadening the horizon, making contact with other cultures: for the time being Margo has not had his fill of this yet. That is why he is desperately looking for a job with an international company. “It must be a job in which I have to travel a lot and meet lots of people. I am still young, I don’t have to make allowances for anything. That may change in a couple of years.” Some day, Margo thinks, he will return to Barcelona, where fair weather, the beach and eating well go hand in hand. “Although you never know what life will bring”, he says, putting it into perspective straight away. “Initially I left for six months and stayed away for years. When you move to an international environment, you end up inside a tornado. New doors open themselves, doors that you have never seen before from your narrow scope. First you see a study, then you see international companies, and so on. You just keep spinning round, and you have to decide whether you want to keep turning, or whether you want to stop.”/.