“A very good initiative,” says Dina Wiyasti from Indonesia. “If I have a bad day, my husband has a bad day too. And his project will suffer from this as well. Therefore it’s wise of the university to nurture us.” “If their partners wouldn’t be willing to come to Eindhoven, some researchers wouldn’t decide to come to TU/e at all, or at least they would be less happy working here”, Van Hoorn remarks. Wiyasti, who studied in Utrecht herself ten years ago and speaks Dutch, confirms this. “For us as partners, it’s good to get recognition from the university. It’s also nice to meet people who are in the same position.”

Guys?
23 out of the 25 attendants of this first partner day are female. “While one third of the partners of international TU/e employees is male”, Van Hoorn mentions. One male participant, Marjan Matovic, from Serbia, wonders “where the other guys are”. His girlfriend is doing a two-year Program Process and Project Design (PPD) at Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Matovic will start a Dutch course in September and is looking for a job and he has discovered the TU/e Sports Center. “I really enjoyed ice skating for example.”

After a welcome by Mr. Jo van Ham, on behalf of the TU/e board of directors, two workshops are held. The first is one on Networking by Marijke Schobben and Mariëtte van den Heuvel from Euflex, an organization which delivers employment services for TU/e. Schobben: “Employees of TU/e are welcome to ask us for career advice.” Schobben talks about networking and how it can be used. “In the Netherlands almost seventy percent of the jobs available are not being advertised, and that is also our experience at Euflex; regularly we have vacancies which are not advertised for whatever reason in public. Networking can be a way to find a job or to orient yourself to what you would like to do.”

Networking
Van den Heuvel advises the participants of the partner day ‘to start a networking campaign today’. All participants present themselves in smaller groups and soon e-mail-addresses, telephone numbers, useful tips and websites for finding a job are exchanged. Vineeta Shetty, who is from India and has been in Eindhoven for two and a half years now, would like to find a temporary job, now her daughter is at school all day. “But that’s not easy to find, especially when you’re not fluent in Dutch.”

Lien Phan Tran Duc from Vietnam decided to study Business Administration at Tilburg University, since she didn’t find a job in her own field as a designer. Wiyasti still has hopes of finding one. “And If I don’t succeed, I am planning to do a second Master in Social Psychology in Tilburg.”

Culture
At the other workshop on Dutch culture Van Hoorn and Ivan Oliveira from Brazil receive a lot of laughter and signs of recognition. Oliveira, who has been in the Netherlands for five months now, describes his experiences here and gives examples of remarkable behavior he has encountered so far. For example of the elderly man who showed him every shop at the ‘Woenselse Markt’ and the shopkeeper who advised him to go somewhere else to buy shoes at a better price.”

In the afternoon the program is continued by a guided tour at the Sports Center or the city centre. Some of the participants have just arrived in Eindhoven, others are quite familiar already. Erica Speglich from Brazil has been in Eindhoven for almost a year now. “I’m in love with the Van Abbe Museum”, she says. She even bought a museum card, to visit the museum for free at other times than Thursday evenings. She also found some Surinam shops for example at the ‘Woenselse Markt’ where she can find food to her Brazilian taste. “We changed from barbecuing to holding picnics, she says laughingly, “but luckily at the space boxes great barbecues are organized still. And we bike a lot in the weekends. With several families we have bought different bike roadmaps from the tourist shop and we exchange them.”

Evaluation
“It’s good to see everyone talk to each other busily on this first partner day” says Van Hoorn, The participants are asked to evaluate this initiative and give suggestions for the next partner day. Both Christine Harting form Germany, who arrived in Eindhoven three months ago, and Rita Dulat-Paszke from Poland, who has been here for nine months already, do agree. “It’s really enjoyable to meet people on a day like this.”/.

Friendship in the Bunker

What does friendship mean to you? Is friendship different in different cultures? Do you have many friends? And is it different to make friends here, compared to your home country? These were some questions put by Andrey Dvortsov at the final social event of 4u2 of this semester organized last Friday at the Bunker.

4U2 organizes events for international students and PhD students in Eindhoven. “We are a Christian organization, but anyone who is interested is welcome to join. Our aim is to show hospitality and welcome people of different cultures and backgrounds to the Netherlands and have fellowship together”, says Froukje de Hoop, from IFES, a Christian student organization. She organized this event together with Andrey Dvortsov, Bin Yang and Michiel van der Stelt. Dvortsov is from Ukraine and started working at Philips after finishing his Master’s degree in Operations Management and Logistics at TU/e in August 2008. Bin Yang, from China, works at IFES and studied at Tilburg University. Michiel van der Stelt is a PhD student of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at TU/e.

Cookies
“On some occasions we have up to twelve guests and on others fewer people show up”, says De Hoop. This evening two people joined for coffee, tea, cookies and a discussion on friendship. As an introduction Dvortsov showed some YouTube-material having to do with friendship. The tune of the television series ‘Friends’ makes Nicolas George laugh. “I watched all episodes.” George is from India, studied Mechanical Engineering in the UK and works at a company in Nuenen which designs small gas turbines. He states that being friends has to do with having no expectations. Yi Zhang, who just started her PhD in Chemistry on sustainable fuels at TU/e, says that in China you call people friends who are really intimate friends, but also what you would call ‘contacts’ here. So people who can help you with something or whom you can help. She also stresses the importance of having dinner in all of social life in China. To the question ‘do you know that person’, people could answer ‘I don’t know him, I haven’t eaten with him yet’.

Dvortsov states that the easiest period to make friends is during your study. George thinks this has to do with the fact that you do not have any commitments yet. “You can just have fun and meet people.” And to the question if you prefer a lot of friends or some good friends, George replies that in India “you form large groups, simply because it’s more fun to be together in a large group. But within the group, only a few people are really close to you.”

Shared interest
And is it easier to make friends with other international people in the Netherlands? Dvortsov thinks it is. “Most of all because of the shared interest. You are both new, have the same problems, can laugh at the Dutch together and complain about the weather.” Yi Zhang, who worked at Dow Chemical in Terneuzen before, says that she really had to adapt to living in Terneuzen and meeting other people there. She said it made her braver. George adds that “especially when you are new you look for friends. And you have to do something to meet them. People don’t come to you when you stay at home.”

The next meeting of 4U2 in the Bunker will be held in August during the introduction. For more information contact Froukje de Hoop at froukje@ifes.nl