The initiative was engendered by collaboration between TU/e and the Volksuniversiteit (adult education center) Eindhoven. TU/e provides the location and the catering while the education center provides the lady teacher. “A ‘normal’ Dutch course easily costs from six to eight hundred euros”, Willem van Hoorn from the Personnel and Organization Department (DPO) informs us. “Which is a lot of money when a couple has to make ends meet on one doctoral candidate’s salary. So this really is a leg-up. This course costs one hundred and twenty euros for fifteen afternoons.”

Learning Dutch is not the only objective of the course. “When you spend fifteen afternoons together with thirteen other people while working towards the same goal of mastering a new language, it is quite probably that you will also establish some new contacts”, says Van Hoorn. The course is taught in English. More information about the Dutch course via Eindhoven@volksuniversiteit.nl.