“I’m not used to being dependent on others, and I’d rather help someone else than be helped myself. I’ve always thought you should give something back to your university, not only take. That’s why I found it hard for me to be in a situation where I didn’t speak the language and knew little about the country or the university. I was always asking for something and not contributing. Basically, in Australia, organizing things is what lecturers do,” she explains.

By now, Ronald is active in the TU/e PhD network and taking part in all kinds of activities. Not to mention regularly going to soccer games, which she believes is one of the best ways to get to know a culture. “This is what people are crazy about. They dress up in their orange gear and scream and shout. I go to games in Australia, but that’s so different. Games are often packed out in the Netherlands. At home stadiums are bigger and never full. Also the beer is half the strength that it is here and there is no smoking allowed at football games.”

Why did she decide to come to TU/e? “Well the short answer is that I was asked nicely,” grins Ronald. “It started with a random e-mail from my current supervisor asking me to write a chapter in a book. I felt I didn’t have enough to say, so I declined. But he told me he had a few openings for PhD students. I was already going to Gothenburg and Hamburg for interviews that summer during a holiday I had planned in Sweden, so I decided to include Eindhoven. The research possibilities at the Urban Planning group at the TU/e’s Department of Architecture, Building and Planning turned out to be what I was looking for; our group has evolved to become very influential in their field internationally.”

Behavior
The Australian PhD student is continuing some of the work she did at the University of Melbourne, concentrating on modeling social influences on activity and travel behavior, using agent-based modeling. “I want to know how people’s social networks determine where they go and how often they travel. And why. The data can then be used in models to forecast future behavior. I think these models of human behavior are really interesting. They are useful in planning the kind of infrastructure and transport facilities that are needed,” she explains.

“This is a very multidisciplinary field. It’s about economic decisions, psychology, sociology, urban planning and mathematical modeling, to name a few areas. When I was working on my Master’s I had to go to five different libraries in Melbourne in one day.”

Dutch
After earning a BE and BSc degree in civil engineering and computer science, Ronald went on to a Master’s in software engineering and computer science. She worked as a transport engineering consultant for half a year before deciding to go back to work at the University of Melbourne part-time in administration and software. There was always some idea of coming to Europe as Ronald had already spent some time in Sweden with relatives and had learned some Swedish and German while still in Australia. “People always ask me why I didn’t learn Dutch while I was at it. Well, there was no Dutch course, but there was a Goethe institute offering German. That has been a help in learning Dutch.”

Ronald has interesting ways of getting information. For example, while she reads Dutch newspapers, she also listens to podcasts from an Australian multicultural radio/TV network which broadcasts in 68 languages including Dutch. In the past, she has berated Cursor in her blog for not including enough university news in English, comments which the writers of this page essentially agreed with. (We’re working on this but cannot immediately claim more pages or get English summaries of Dutch articles - PR). Her website includes some interesting links for expats and her blog always has a quirky point of view.

Different
“I like finding things that are different or the same. Trivial things that no one cares about often interest me. I like talking about the good and the bad things in Holland, and what it’s like being a PhD student,” she says. “TV is different. Food is different. Prices are higher. You can get a meal for 6 euros in Australia. Once I found $40 in a pub in Australia and bought dinner for three. Also it’s amazing how much better everything in Holland looks in the sun. I really enjoyed the Keukenhof on a sunny spring day.”/.

See also www.expatnumbat.wordpress.com