Archive

“Nothing gives the human machine such an impetus as a supreme belief in one’s own abilities.” This is one of the life lessons as described in The Human Machine (1925). Miriam Engels, a third-year psychology student, picked this book to write a review about - see below. Engels was one of the honours programme students sent to the c...

She is a third-year student of International Business, but her study has been put on the back burner for the moment. From February 2012 to February 2013, Tanja Heijne (21) is a board member of Integrand - the non-profit work placement mediating organisation that links university-trained students to businesses. She has always wanted to study busine...

The Green Office has received the oikos Student Leadership Award. This award is given to outstanding student projects or campaigns contributing to a sustainable campus and encouraging other students to start their own initiatives. Ulrich Scharf of the Green Office accepted the award on Wednesday at the award ceremony at the University of Oregon in ...

Scenesconnected The second cultural arts festival Scenesconnected will be held on Saturday 7 July at the Oude Nutsterrein at Maagdendries 1. The programme is crowdsourced, which means it will take shape during the festival, with input from the audience. There’ll be pop music, indie, disco and techno, theatre performances, dance, a lounge bar...

The Maastricht ICIS institute has received a subsidy of six hundred thousand euros from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) to work together with the Indonesian universities of Lampung and Yogyakarta on research into governance and socioeconomic developments in the field of sustainability. The Indonesian Ministry of Education ...

“I’m learning Dutch. Ik kan het een beetje verstaan, maar nog niet zo goed spreken.” Renée Meijer – born in the USA and a second-year student at the University College – is half Dutch and half American. “I lived in Russia for eight years and after that ten years in South Korea. We always spoke English at home. Bu...

  Doing a PhD: you love it, but you hate it, but really you love it. Yesterday, I was madly in love with mine. I was looking at progressives in Dutch people’s English, categorising thousands of them as correct or not. It’s more fun than it sounds. How is analysing –ing words fun, you ask? Oh, but it is. I can think of lots o...

BAM Festival Student association Koko is organising the BAM Festival for the second time in the Stadspark at the OLV Wall. Various DJs as well as regional bands like Solid Sun, Jimmy D and A Nameless Band Called Funk will perform on Friday 15 June from 15.00 until 23.00. The festival is free for everyone. For the full programme, please visit www.b...

Ali B and Beppie Kraft will be the opening acts of Inkom 2012 on the Markt on 21 August. This was announced by the Inkom Working Group during a pre-Inkom drink on Tuesday. Next year’s programme is somewhat different from previous years. Registrations are no longer in Randwyck, but at the School of Business and Economics. Instead of a parade h...

    Being slightly older than her fellow students, Sinéad Haywood (26), a first-year European Law School student from the United Kingdom, was used to the effort and work needed in the PBL system. “I had friends who studied here a few years ago and I’d also lived and worked with a lot of international people in my previous jo...

  It starts with some sweet strumming on a Spanish guitar, after which a trumpet joins in with the melody and then a cool, dark voice follows with a rap. This is how one could describe one of the unconventional songs on the first album by UM student band Serious Beans Project. It is called Périple, which is French for ‘journey’, a...

Fashionclash Over 100 young, talented designers will come together at Fashionclash 2012, with various fashion shows taking place from Friday 8 until Sunday 10 June in the SAM Decoorfabriek. A Fashionclash market will also be held in Centre Céramique, where visitors can buy clothes and accessories from the designers. For more information, please vi...

  I’m not in love with the langstudeerdersregeling. Imposing it on students who incurred a study delay before it was implemented is wrong. But I am irritated by the bad arguments made against it. ‘It puts too much pressure on students.’ No. With a few exceptions, if a student honestly can't finish a bachelor’s degr...

“Maastricht University could definitely be more international,” says Raluca Nicolae, a master student of Management of Learning, from Romania. She reckons it would help if there were more nationalities at the university. “It would be better if the students came from more diverse backgrounds, instead of mainly from two countries; G...

Luminous Landscapes Project What’s the role of the landscape in films? Students of the master study of Media Culture have created an exhibition regarding this question. It can be seen in the foyer of the Lumière Cinema and is called the Luminous Landscapes Project. There are, for example, three 1-minute films of the same story, but in differ...

Funny things, graduations. I like wearing silly hats as much as the next person, but it does make you wonder. Whoever came up with the outfit? In the good old days, students wore full academic regalia every day. These days gowns are usually reserved for graduations, but if you decide to make a career of academia, you can still collect quite a numbe...

University Choir The University Choir will celebrate its 35th anniversary with two concerts on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 May in La Bonbonnière. The choir will sing together with university choirs from Granada (Spain), Helsinki (Finland) and Halmstad (Sweden), with the theme ‘Summer nights’. Tickets cost €10 or €7 for students...

  Nothing else will get you warmed up better for a great summer than a lovely day in the sun with the finest music and DJs. This is the text on the website pitching for Summer Deejays, a music festival at the Griend for students, next Friday. An ideal warm-up, undoubtedly true but what is more important, is the fact that the organisers &ndash...

  What are the business trends of 2012? ‘Trendspotting’ will be one of the main topics during the fourth Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship (MeWeek), which revolves around ‘change-makers’ who can inspire young entrepreneurs. Social and ecological entrepreneurship has been a key trend in recent years, says lecturer Ge...

“A goal that guides us” – this is what the Green Office is looking for in its Sustainability Vision 2030. Just as there is a strategic plan for the future of the university, the Green Office wants to write a plan for the future of sustainability at UM. But, as they explained during their presentation to staff and students last Tue...

Knitting Image It’s all about knitting at the new Uit de Keuken van Sam project. SAM is the Maastricht Ateliers Foundation, which rents studios to artists. On its invitation, artists Juul Sadée and Han Rameckers have created Knitting Image. This project kicks off on Saturday 12 May with a knitting session where participants will, under the s...

Her first encounter with Problem-Based Learning was quite a shock, laughs Ghada Almojadidi, a second-year Medicine student from Saudi Arabia, originally from Makkah. “I arrived in the middle of the year that prepares students from my country for Medicine. The first thing I noticed was that the teacher wasn’t talking; it was the students...

Reading study books all the time makes me a bit cross-eyed. So I wanted to rediscover the enjoyment of reading. Of course, I should have opted for a nice, easy English book. But I like to make life hard, so instead I chose a nice, ‘easy’ Dutch book. My first ever, since Jip en Janneke doesn’t count. And sure, I translate Dutch all...

The Maastricht economists have made a leap forward in the top 100 of the Tilburg University Economics Ranking, going from place 62 to 49. The international list is based on the number of publications from 2007 to 2011 in dozens of top journals. Five Dutch universities are listed, of which Tilburg holds the highest place (21). Nothing has changed at...

Half a year ago, British historian Timothy Garton Ash gave the following answer in Der Spiegel to the question what the illness was that Europe is suffering from: “Europe is a woman, now middle-aged, who has already had a number of heart attacks and is currently experiencing the biggest health crisis of her life, but one that need not be fatal.” I...

''Being a student in International Business, you come across a lot of Germans'', says Simon Hast (23,),a third-year student from Germany at the School of Business and Economics. ''Yet most of the students already have an international background. A lot have travelled to places all over the world; some have even lived in other countries before comin...

It’s been six years since Abdoullah al-Mansouri was arrested in Syria and extradited to Iran. Al-Masouri is an Iranian who fled to Maastricht in 1989 as a result of his work for the independence of the Ahwazi, an ethnic minority in Iran. In Maastricht he was an active member of the Dutch Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and GroenLinks. S...

Ten thousand academics have now signed the petition to boycott journals by Elsevier, the Dutch-Brittish publishing giant now widely seen as the pin-up of profiteering. In a move that could kick off a revolution in the spread of scientific knowledge, the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest funders of medical research, recently announced that ...

“From one day to the next, the locations of the tutorial groups had changed and I couldn’t find my first-year group”, says Jonathan van Tilburg, lecturer at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences. “So what happened: the students did it themselves. Afterwards they sent me their learning goals. They were of a very high level. The students ...

El Dunya festival A tour around the world in your own town – this is what the El Dunya festival claims to be. On Sunday 6 May a big market will be held in the Stadspark with items from all around the globe, as well as world music, dance and workshops. The market will be open from 12.30 until 19.30; all performances and workshops are free of charge...

Back in the good old days, scientists never wasted their time on tiresome ethics committee bureaucracy. In 1976, the US researchers Middlemist, Knowles and Matter tackled the burning research question: how do invasions of personal space affect men’s urination in a public toilet? Their unwitting urinators could choose from one of three urinals. A re...

The university library is going to make new study documents (PDFs) available in such a way that the texts are searchable and suitable for highlighting and adding annotations. In the coming weeks, some 19,000 old documents will be adapted as well. The University Library is taking the measures mainly in reaction to a proposal by political student par...

Queen’s Day The Dutch celebrate their Queen’s birthday on Monday 30 April with music, dance and the traditional Vrijmarkt, a large-scale unregulated street market. In Maastricht the party already starts on Sunday 29 April, with Queensnight. Bands and DJs will perform at pubs in the city centre and Wyck. On Monday, there is a children's market on t...

“To me, the university seems pretty international,” says Ivan Dragonov, a first-year student of Econometrics and Operations Management from Bulgaria. “Although that may have to do with my programme: we’re a small group, so it’s easy to get to know everybody.” He chose Maastricht University after visiting a friend in Brussels. “I mentioned that I’d...

By mid-June, the participants of the International Classroom project want to put forward a policy proposal on the internationalisation of Maastricht University. At the International Classroom symposium on Tuesday 17 April, the four working groups – focussing on the themes of identity building, Inkom and faculty orientation, mix-and-mingle events an...

The editorial board of Observant is looking for a student columnist for its English section for the 2012-2013 academic year. The work consists of writing a total of 37 columns, which may be about any of a variety of topics (current affairs, student life, science, family, et cetera). The student will be coached by one of the editors and will be paid...

The Times Higher Education magazine has reported that claims of British students ‘flocking’ to the Netherlands are gross exaggerations. In reality, the article points out, he number of Dutch students in the UK is more than double that of British students in the Netherlands. Sure – but the fact that British students are now the fourth largest n...

Professor Sterken, Rector Magnificus of the University of Groningen, proposes to shorten the PhD track to from four to three years (Observant 27) to make an end to the longer-than-planned duration of these tracks. My point of view differs from Professor Sterken's on the consequences. Is the PhD track best represented by the walk, or by its destina...

Maastricht Toneelstad What does Maastricht has to offer when it comes to theatre? See for yourself during the Maastricht Toneelstad Festival from Friday 20 April until Wednesday 25 April. The performances given by actors from the theatre academy, are suitable for an English-speaking audience and will be shown in various theatres all over town. Tic...

The Maastricht police have warned that they will take stringent measures against people who cause a nuisance in the park. “We’ve received complaints about youngsters driving their scooters through the park and students barbecuing – which damages the grass and causes a lot of smoke”, says police officer Will Schobbe. When the weather improves, extra...

What will the future of the European Union look like? Is the EU a credible role model? Why is right-wing radicalism on the rise in the EU? These and other questions about the EU will be addressed on the website www.laelaps.eu, which will be launched on Friday 20 April. The website is an initiative of a group of Maastricht students who feel that the...

“When I finished high school I wanted to study abroad to broaden my horizons and to get a better education”, says Feras Alhazmi (23), a third-year medicine student from Saudi Arabia. “At home you only acquire scientific knowledge; abroad you also learn about other cultures, see different perspectives, and meet other people. That’s better for your p...

My favourite academic this week is Dan Ariely, an Israeli-American professor of Behavioural Economics. He gave people a series of simple maths problems and said he would pay a dollar per correct answer. The result? People cheat more if they see someone else cheating whom they identify with. And they cheat twice as much when rewarded with a token th...

I would like to react to the column of "Albert Bergbroeder" concerning his view on MaasAction. He presents his very passionate point of view regarding the anonymity of this particular group, MaasAction. He considers them a "zooitje digitale bivakmutsen" as they do not make their name(s) public. Hereby I would like to ask him whether it is not extre...

When Dutch students in my tutor groups suggest that international students should better integrate and learn the local language, I always ask them whether they would consider taking a course in German as well. After all, German is the language of the majority of our European Studies students and is pretty useful these days in business and politics....

Last week, eightteen American postgraduate students collected an amount of 1.750 euros for the Ronald McDonald House in Maastricht. The students, who came from Missouri, participated in a customised education programme (European Management Residency) created by the Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship, the Centre for European Studies and Postgrad...

“I never experienced difficulties making friends of all nationalities here. I think the university is a really international environment”, says Zhen Wang, a Chinese master’s student in Econometrics and Operations Management, thus rejecting the claim that students who are neither Dutch nor German fall between the cracks of the different groups. “In ...

Taste of Spring DJs Jochem (At the Villa), Flash (Solar, Castle of Love, Groove-A-licious) and Franco La Cara (High Heels) will kick off the Easter long weekend on Saturday 7 April at Taste of Spring. The profits from this festival, now being held for the fifth time, will go to charity. The event will take place in the Ipanema, the bar next to the...

Silent disco The exhibition Silent Disco will open on Sunday 25 March at 15.00 in ‘t Brandweer, the exhibition hall at the Capucijnenstraat 21. With nothing more than a Bic pen, the artist Esther de Bont has made huge drawings of figures that seem to move through the room. The exhibition will be open until 29 April. For opening times, please check...

“I came here with the idea that I would acquire a large circle of German and Dutch friends,” says Dutch-German psychology student Lavinia Thelen. To immediately add: “That did not happen.” According to her, this has more to do with cultural differences than with the language barrier. “Of course it is easier to talk in your own language. I notice th...

It looks like Maastricht will finally have a pop stage. The mayor and councillors have suggested that the Maastricht Music Hall (MMH, at the Griend near the Maas) be turned into a pop stage, and rooms at Kumulus (in Wyck) be used for recording and practising music. The discussion about a pop stage in Maastricht has been going on for years. One sta...

An atom walks into a bar and says to the barman, “I’ve lost my electron.” “Are you sure?” says the barman. The atom replies: “Yes, I’m positive.” It’s bad physics jokes like this that keep me going when my PhD feels like it’s sunk into, er, a black hole. And they get worse: Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar. And doesn’t. Said to be true (though ve...

Two weeks ago, students from the School of Business and Economics won the ‘international case competition’ in Montréal. It is SBE’s fourth victory – after Bangkok, Copenhagen and Singapore. In a case competition, student teams have to solve a real-life business problem and prepare a presentation on the solution while being locked in a hotel room fo...

“At the School of Business and Economics’ open day, the international environment was strongly promoted. You will be in a classroom with people from all corners of the world, we were told. Also that half the students would be from Germany. That is not completely true because in reality almost everyone is German at International Business. At least 7...

After ‘Super Tuesday’ in the US last week, it looks likely that Mitt Romney will bring home the Republican nomination. It hasn’t been an easy race. Critics were quick to jump on Romney’s casual mention of the ‘couple of Cadillacs’ his wife owns; not something that will endear you to a country still deep in economic crisis. Still, all he had to do w...

Karma Police Indie pop band Karma Police will release their first album at the Muziekgieterij on Friday, 16 March. This young band recently won the Kunstbende in Belgium Limburg (an annual contest for young artists) and will go to the final in Gent in May. According to the jury, they play “catchy songs, that’ll stay in your head for a long time”. ...

So Maastricht wants to be named European Capital of Culture 2018. A noble ambition, which puts us in the league of such esteemed former winners as Turku, the official ‘Christmas city’ of Finland, and Bruges, whose claim to fame remains a fleeting visit by the spunky Irish actor Colin Farrell. Not to mention Linz, once home to the mathematician Joha...

During Tefaf Friday 16 March will see the start of the 25th edition of The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf). Although the art might be a bit over a student’s budget, there’s still a lot to enjoy at the fair’s side programme During Tefaf, which will start on Tuesday 13 March. There’ll be jazz music, ballet, lectures, exhibitions and theatre performan...

I’m looking for the Yeti. Well, not literally. I’m looking, in my PhD, for a ‘Dutch English’, a legitimate variety of English like, say, Australian or Indian English. Like the Yeti, it’s something we’ve all heard of, but no-one’s ever seen. While it’s easy to make a theoretical case for Dutch English, actually pinpointing this mythical dialect is m...

Wherever we go Young Norwegian theatre producer and Top Naeff award winner Øystein Johansen has delivered his first piece at the Huis van Bourgondië. In Wherever we go we meet three men who hide from the world and the end of everything. While they live in their isolated bubble, reality goes on. The first show will be held on Tuesday 6 March, follo...

The next Mix and Mingle will be a bit more active than students are used to. Mix and Mingle parties are organised every few months as a chance for international students to get together. This time, the event is being organised together with UM Sport. “It all started with an article in Observant about the International Classroom”, says Netty Bekkers...

‘After 35 years the student and the city are still with their backs turned to each other. A scandal!?’ This is one of the theorems which a panel of 35 people from Maastricht University and the city of Maastricht will debate on Monday March 5. Central theme: ‘The Maastricht student should be more involved in the city of Maastricht’. The debate will ...

“It’s not even wrong.” This was the criticism a friend recently received for his PhD work in maths. And it’s a damning allegation. Consider 1 + 1 = 3. This is simply wrong. But 1 + 1 = vodka is so bizarre it’s not even wrong – it’s nonsensical, and thus meaningless. The phrase “not even wrong” was coined by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli, wh...

Songs we embrace Jorunn Bauweraerts, Annelies Brosens and Nathalie Delcroix, also known as vocal group Laïs, will sing the songs they “always wanted to sing, but never had the chance to” in their show Songs we embrace. Together with Maandacht they’ll perform their own versions of well-known and less well-known songs in De Velinx in Tongeren on Fri...

Students who do not want to be sent away as a result of a binding study advice, will have to do better in first year. The School of Business and Economics is raising its BSA standard from 34 to 47 credits as of September 2012. The faculty council approved the measure last Thursday. The programme committee had already given the go-ahead in January. ...

Lumière art cinema welcomed a record number of visitors in 2011: 103,500.  Among them were 10,034 students (excluding the ‘discount’ Mondays when student IDs are not checked). The number of students has increased over the past few years, says business director Nico Haenen. “In 2010 the number was 7,946. The special performances together with S...

A UFO was spotted above the Waddenzee last week, the NRC reported. Was it really a flying saucer with little green men? The speculation brings to mind a Richard Feynman lecture, now decades old and available on YouTube in all its black and white glory. Feynman was an American physicist, known as “the Great Explainer”. And you can see why, as he tel...

Maaslove Party Romance is in the air; it's Valentine’s Day on Tuesday 14 February. Maaslife.nl hosts a Valentine’s party on this day at Il Cavo. The doors open at 22:00hrs, the party will go on until 2:00hrs. The organisers are going to give out romantic specials at the door. Entrance is €3. For more information, please visit www.maaslife.nl.
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“We focused too much on the rules, instead of on who should apply those rules.” Former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok made this comment about the Maastricht Treaty – the treaty that led to the introduction of the euro – at the conference The Maastricht Treaty: taking stock after 20 years on Tuesday in the Statenzaal of the Limburg Government building...

Stukafest A student room offers a lot of possibilities, as Stukafest proves every year with its student room festival. Music and dance, poetry and comedy; it can all happen in approximately 12 m2. Stukafest will be held in Maastricht on Tuesday 7 February. The first of three rounds starts at 20.30; the last ends at 23.00. Almost all acts are acces...

My supervisor’s office, probably much to her dismay, has a fully glass front. So I can always see if she’s in, even if she’s trying to hide behind a plant pot. This is invaluable, because I seem to have hit the latest obstacle in the life of a PhD student: desperate, crippling insecurity. Am I going in the right direction? Or just going around in c...

Maastricht bells Don’t panic when you hear a lot of bells ringing on Friday 27 January at 11.30. There’s no fire – it’s the Maastricht bells, the kick-off of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Maastricht Conservatory. All church bells and carillons across town will join in a bells concert, together with primary school children with h...

All PhD students are masters of procrastination. Going to the movies is always a reliable form of procrastination, and I’ll watch anything (unless it has zombies, aliens or hobbits). On Wednesday, in the middle of the day, I went to see The Artist. Guiltily, because even I can’t deny that when it comes to procrastination, seeing a black and white F...

The website Cultural Square, where students could find the cultural agenda for Maastricht and get discounts on cultural activities, will be shut down. This is due to the recent budget cuts at Maastricht University. Cultural Square will continue to exist in a more stripped down version on Facebook, where you can ‘like’ the page. It will give updates...

Winterreise The Kameropera Festival Maastricht presents a special version of Schubert’s Winterreise. Here, the focus is more on the woman who broke the heart of Schubert’s main character (played by soprano Bibi van den Dijck). She now regrets this and – highly pregnant in the winter – decides to follow him on his journey. The concert will be held ...

Where is the revolution? This is the theme of the UCM Conference to be held on 25 and 26 January. “We want people to think about that, although we already kind of give the answer – namely, everywhere”, says Undine Rubeze, one of the twenty students who are organising the event. The conference looks at revolutions in a very broad perspective, from p...

Think of a subject for a serious game in UM education! This appeal – under the heading of ‘Leading and Learning’ – was sent out by e-mail to students and staff last week. The deadline was 24 January. The idea came from a somewhat unexpected corner: the University Council. It explains why professor Wim Gijselaers, who is co-ordinating the Leading in...

The School of Business and Economics has stopped the Second Life project as of September. The project – very popular among students – was part of the marketing course. The department concerned found it too expensive. The block does indeed cost a few thousand euros extra, says Gwen Noteborn, expert in the field of ICT innovations. "But I feel that ...

Giving a presentation is not the scariest part of an academic conference. Far more frightening is deciding where to sit at the conference banquet. Either you want to climb the professional ladder by manoeuvring yourself next to the keynote speakers, or – if you can’t navigate a plate of wonton noodles with chopsticks (because ‘conference dinner’ is...

Lunch concerts Looking for a nice way to spend your lunch break? Check out the organ lunch concerts in the university auditorium at the Tongersestraat 53, where well-known organists will play the recently restored organ. The concerts start at 12.30 and take approximately 30 minutes; the auditorium opens at 12.15. The first concert will be on Wedne...

"Breaking down the walls" was the motto (a kind of guiding principle for the organisation) used by the President of the Executive Board, Martin Paul, for 2012. In doing so he referred not to a “new destructive real estate design”, he said last week during a well-attended New Year’s reception in the university restaurant on the Tongersestraat. His n...

It seems like only yesterday, yet two weeks of blissful holidays have passed since the last exams. Since not all students were disciplined enough to study at home, and right before Christmas the library was packed with students preparing for exams and writing essays, Jules & You came up with a solution, offering space and unlimited free caffein...

Miraculous Wednesday The longing to control time and the wish to rewrite history – this is the theme of the new show by dance group Club Guy and Roni, called Miraculous Wednesday. What happens when you get a chance to do something over? The performance starts at 20.30 on Friday 6 January in the AINSI. For those who understand Dutch, there will be ...

“It’s time to face the truth and stop this strange English”, wrote Rik Smits, a Dutch linguist and publicist, in last week’s Volkskrant. English in the Netherlands is “onverstaanbaar Dutchglish”, he says, and Dutch universities would better serve foreign students with good Dutch rather than cruddy English. What Smits doesn’t mention is the worldwid...

Circus Request Serious Request is an annual project by Dutch radio station 3FM in which they collect money for Red Cross projects. This year, DJ Giel Beelen will travel around the country to collect money by doing special assignments. On Monday 19 December he’ll visit Sittard with his Circus Request. The day will start at 10.00 in the inner city a...

You’re frustrated, you work in a business where uniformity is the highest good, the world is about to end and you’re in desperate need of a smoke. Where do you go? To the roof of the office building. Apart from nicotine the staff have other needs, but what are they? The answer will be presented by student drama club Alles is Drama in After the Rain...

From now on master’s students at the School of Business and Economics must complete their thesis within seven months, otherwise they will have officially ‘failed’. And anyone who does not manage within the resit period of three months, will have to start from scratch. The latter means finding a new subject and a new supervisor.  The regulatio...

Yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple, black. This is the colour order in which you need to eat jellybeans, otherwise I come out in instant hives (a lumpy red rash that you might know as netelroos of galbulten, not to be mistaken for the Dutch social networking site Hyves). Until recently I thought I was alone as far as colour-related oddities g...

Magic Music Maastricht Cafés in Maastricht (including Café Zondag and John Mullins) will open their doors for the first Magic Music festival on Friday 9, Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 December. Artists such as Hellbound Glory, David Philips, Jamie Mc Donald and Arthur Ebeling will play in styles ranging from rock to soul and jazz. For the full program...

Fashionclash market Young Maastricht designers will present their clothing, jewellery, furniture and other accessories on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 December during the Fashionclash market at Centre Céramique. The market will be open from 10.00–15.00 on Saturday and 13.00–17.00 on Sunday. For more information on the designers, please check www.fashio...

Last week I went to a talk by Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and God of all atheists. During question time, a philosophy student asked what Dawkins makes of the ideas of Descartes – what can we really know as true, without any doubt? – and Bertrand Russell – how do we know that we weren’t put on the Earth five minutes ago, with fossils in ...

Making pubs in Maastricht greener. That is the aim of a new project, called Green Drinking, initiated by Sife, a student organisation that wants to inspire sustainable change by creating economic opportunities. The students will make sure that enough people turn up, the owner of the pub where the party will be held promises to invest part of the ta...

Magic Music Matinee The first of a series of Sunday afternoon concerts is on Sunday 27 November in the Magisch Theatertje. Irish singer Declan de Barra will perform songs from his latest album. Supporting act is Jimmy Dee & Friends. The show will start at 15:00hrs. Tickets are €10 if you book in advance. For reservations, please visit www.magi...

Collaboration with Hogeschool Zuyd, with the RWTH Aachen University or with other institutes in the Euroregion? The UM’s Language Centre is currently drawing up a strategic plan for the future. Everything is possible, rector Gerard Mols said last week during a meeting with the university council's I&S committee, who put the future of the Langua...

People are getting smarter, and this is irritating. You used to be able to make smug comments like “You know, I read somewhere that [insert wildly inaccurate fact here: Geert Wilders was raised in a madrasa, Nederland is an Old Saxon word meaning ‘poor of weather but stellar with cheese’, etc.]”. Now, people want to know your source, and God forbid...

Showtime! ‘International students and their way of art’ is the theme of this year’s Open Day at the Bonnefantenmuseum on Sunday 20 November. The programme – called Showtime! – includes performances, guided tours and workshops. For instance, drama club Alles is Drama will perform a special play for the Open Day in the room showing the work of Sol L...

Sinterklaas Sinterklaas, the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, is coming to town. On Saturday 12 November he will arrive at 11.00 at the Kesselsekade with his Zwarte Pieten on his steamship full of presents. Mayor Onno Hoes and hundreds of children will be there to welcome him, after which Sinterklaas will take a tour through Wyck and the city cent...

The overall quality of the research at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is ‘very good’. The relevance is even excellent. This is the conclusion of the international external review committee that visited the faculty in mid-September. Nonetheless, the committee identified a few weaknesses, one of them being the relatively low rate of success...

Last month, Maastricht’s own Professor Herman Kingma was granted an Ig Nobel Prize for his work on why discus throwers get dizzy. The Igs – an alternative to the real Nobel Prizes – are awarded annually at Harvard University to celebrate unusual (if not downright wacky) research. Further Igs were awarded for research on why Australian beetles try t...

World Press Photo Friday 4 November will see the opening of the World Press Photos 2011. Over 170 photos will be shown in the Maastricht exhibition, in categories like news, art, entertainment, nature and sport. At 13.30 there will be an English-language guided tour (cost: €3) with information on the photos and the photographers. The exhibition wi...

UCM student, Lauren Schuivens, failed to become the new Dutch UN youth representative. In the finals of the UN&me congress on 23 October, she lost to Kirty Matabadal from Leiden. CF

I am a slogan t-shirt geek. I like them nerdy, like one belonging to my friend, a chemist, which lists in alphabetical order the elements of a human body (65% oxygen, fyi). I like them political, as in “That's ok, I wasn't using my civil liberties anyway”. I’m a particular fan of the feminist kind, with a picture of [insert your choice of Germaine ]...

The Maastricht economists have risen five places in the top 100 of the Tilburg University Economics Ranking. They went from 67th to 62nd place. Of the five Dutch universities on the international list, Maastricht and Amsterdam (VU) were the only ones to climb. The ranking is based on publications in leading journals in the past five years (2006-201...

Academics thrive on stupidity. In his article ‘The importance of stupidity in scientific research’, microbiologist Martin Schwartz points out that since the point of research is to find out that which we don’t know, it’s only natural that it makes us all feel stupid. (“if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying”). Another key skill, I...

The parking arrangement for foreign students who commute to Maastricht every day has been temporarily suspended. The parking permits for areas around the city centre are likely be issued from 1 December, or as soon as the Maastricht city council has given its approval for the permanent regulation. The trial project that started in September last y...

Long wooden tables, fresh flowers, cosy seating areas and – for when the sun shines – attractive outdoor seating. Last Monday, the new Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences common room and coffee corner – Bandito Espresso – at Grote Gracht 86 opened its doors. As an opening stunt, all visitors are allowed to determine for themselves how much they wan...

Intensive care 3 a.m. A camera crew gets permission to shoot a film in a hospital. Some of the hospital staff get thoroughly irritated by the film crew’s behaviour. One night this irritation reaches its climax, but it also reveals unexpected perspectives as well. This, in short, is the story behind Intensive care 3 a.m., the new play by the Toneel...

In a reply to the article ‘Traditional student associations less popular’ in the Observant of October 6th, the first thing that came to mind was ‘Hey, where are the sports associations?’. In the piece I am talking about, the comparison was made between the traditional student associations (gaining less new members) on the one hand and MSRV Saurus ...

D-vers To get a taste of what’s going on in pop music in Limburg, check out the D-vers festival on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 October in Sittard. New this year is the musicians’ day on 14 October, when pop musicians can follow workshops on how to get your band booked, how to improve your English lyrics and more. The performances will take place at ...

UCM student Lauren Schuivens is one of the last six candidates vying to become the Dutch UN youth representative. Previously, UCM student Dirk Janssen and FASoS student Anne Schepers were the UN youth representative and Unesco youth representative, respectively. To make it to the finals, Schuivens needs to collect as many votes as possible. This S...

The first time I ever gave a presentation of my own research terrified me. Picturing people naked just doesn’t help. The best advice I was ever given was to ‘act like an actor’; in other words, to play a role. Pretend you are the person you want to project (someone confident and engaging, not someone who wants to curl up in the corner in foetal pos...

The more traditional student associations in Maastricht are less popular among first-year students this year. Tragos inaugurated 89 new members (2010: 105) and Circumflex 113 (2010: 130). Tragos chair David Hageman is not sure what’s behind the drop in popularity. “We had more subscriptions, but a lot of people didn’t show up to the introduction, e...

Students at Maastricht University are overall happy with the university buildings and the additional facilities like Studium Generale, UM Sports and EleUM. They’re less thrilled with the announcement of test results, the cafeteria, the number of workplaces in the inner city library and the Language Centre. These are the outcomes of Student Monitor,...

I have friends who are close to submitting their PhD dissertations. They are tired, moody and stressed out. “You’ll be so happy when it’s all over!”, people keep telling them. But that’s not the problem, my friends say. They are moody and stressed precisely because it’s nearly over. These are four years that you’ll never have again. Four years of y...

BodyTalks From Friday 30 September until Sunday 23 October the exhibition BodyTalks – Video Art & Cinedans in Public Space will be held in the inner city of Maastricht. Every night 23 video artworks and dance films will be shown from shop windows, empty offices and homes, making BodyTalks the largest video art exhibition in Europe. Parallel to...

Entering the Kiwi restaurant on Tuesday night was like embarking on a cruise trip to Italy. Accents from Tuscany, Milan, Bologna, Rome and Naples filled the air while almost forty chatty Italian students got to know each other, exchanging life stories and, of course, some of Mamma’s secret recipes. The Italian reunion at Kiwi was the first event of...

Paul Vermin, 'student cop' since last May, wants to be a mediator between students and the city. He thinks there is a lot of room for improvement in the relationship between the students and Maastricht. “At the moment, it is still often we –the people from Maastricht – and they – the students.” As far as he is concerned, the key word is discussion....

When tuition fees are hiked up here and people start to fret about affordability, it always takes me back to my undergrad days in Sydney. Tuition fees there run into the tens of thousands of dollars and my university used to offer a free breakfast to poor students. ‘Poor’ seemed to be defined as anyone who showed up early enough, looking hungry eno...

Popronde There’ll be music all over town in Maastricht this weekend. Along with the Tuna festival, the Popronde (pop music round) will also take place, with dozens of bands playing at various cafés and clubs on Friday 23 September. The Popronde is a travelling festival that gives upcoming bands a chance to play for a bigger audience; well-known ba...

Students from EU countries who want to claim Dutch student grants, must work at least 32 hours per month. In principle, traineeship hours do not count. Labour party MP Tanja Jadnanansing had asked state secretary Zijlstra to make trainees exempt from this compulsory work requirement, but the latter is against the idea. European students in the Ne...

Less money for research: not the current one billion euros, but a drop to nine hundred million in 2012, and a little more than eight hundred million in 2016. State secretary Zijlstra will even go as far as dividing up seven per cent of the existing budget for tertiary education among universities and schools of higher professional education that fu...

I’ve talked about my celebrity academic crushes before. Here’s how not to leave a lasting, intelligent impression. Ben Goldacre writes a column in the Guardian called Bad Science (and published a book with the same name). Each week, he targets topical examples of science gone bad (e.g. all things homeopathy, or those ‘TV doctors’ who get their qual...

Musica Sacra The theme of the 29th Musica Sacra Festival is The Joy of the Law. From Thursday 15 until Sunday 18 September, various historical locations in the Maastricht inner city will form the setting for many concerts and performances – most of them free of charge – all related to this theme. For the full programme and information on where to ...

The Parcours As usual, this year’s cultural season in Maastricht will kick off with the Parcours. On Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 September, 168 performances and concerts will be held all over town, free of charge. At the same time, Heritage Day will also take place. On 11 September, various historical buildings and sites around Maastricht will be op...

Don’t give me Brad Pitt or Matt Damon (well, ok, maybe Matt Damon). All my celebrity crushes are on big-name academics. A friend and I once saw Richard Dawkins on the street and started squealing like schoolgirls. Another friend is now heading to CERN in Geneva for a year’s worth of PhD research, and I am green with envy. Why? Professor Brian Cox, ...

In last week’s Observant, local students advise new international students to learn Dutch. Learning the Dutch language will help these new students to better integrate into their new Maastricht study and living environment. It is said that students learn very well from each other. The university also puts great value on both formal and informal in...

Festival Bruis Loads of upcoming bands, a food circus, exciting theatre performances and the band De Staat, which has already found quite some fame in the Netherlands. You’ll get all this and more at Bruis, a free festival held on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 September at the Tapijnkazerne sports fields. For the full programme, please visit www.bruisma...

New in Observant this academic year is the English-language column by Australian Alison Edwards, every week on the front page. Also new is our series on the main research topics in the Dutch research agenda. Every week, a different Maastricht researcher will talk about one of these themes. And finally: what’s the most precious or funny thing you br...

The direct Maastricht-Liege-Brussels train connection ends on 11 December 2011. Travellers from Maastricht bound for Brussels will then need to change trains and incur longer travelling times. The reasons for the decision by the Belgian Railway (NMBS) to discontinue the service were general cutbacks as well as the many delays on this line. Petitio...

Enough is enough for the residents of Mariaberg. According to local citizen Mirjam Stax, they have started “an offensive” against German students who park their cars illegally, in particular five meters from a crossing. We notify the police each time. Stax claims that quite a number of traffic fines have already been issued. The reason for their a...

If I could give new students in Maastricht one suggestion, it would be to join a group. It doesn’t matter what group: capoeira, chess, debating ... The point is that this is where you’ll make friends with likeminded people, and it’s what will save your social life (and sanity) if you discover you don’t like your classmates. Of course, if your passi...

After a few months in Maastricht, I don’t miss my family, pets, or friends more than I miss my one comfort food that just doesn’t exist here. Texans are born and raised to cook and eat authentic Mexican food, so every week I yearn for the free endless servings of chips and salsa back home. Europe definitely has America beat in every other area of f...

Dour Festival More than 200 bands and DJs will perform at the 23rd Dour Festival from 14 to 17 July in Dour, Belgium. Headliners this year are Cypress Hill, Papa Roach, Pulp and House of Pain. The Dour Festival aims to showcase a diversity of artists on its seven stages, with each stage flying the colours of its own particular genre. Observant is ...

What is the most typically Dutch food of all? Some would say friet, but Belgians would certainly object. The question who was first and more importantly who makes the best will never be answered. My favourite frituur developed a compromise: it uses Belgian potatoes, Dutch oil and for the mayonnaise you can choose between Belgian, Dutch or German. I...

I grew up playing basketball, baseball, and American football with my three siblings and neighbourhood friends in the front yard; we broke a few windows and wore our previously grassy yard into a dirt pit, but we had the time of our lives out there. I was shocked to discover that these sports are extremely rare in Europe and are replaced with sport...

As summer is coming, it’s time for Maastricht’s outdoor dance event for students: Summer Deejays. This is the third annual festival, and will take place on Friday 17 June. It promises a full day of dance music with DJs such as Michel de Hey and Peter Horrevorts. The event will be held at the Griend, which means you’ll be able to watch the sunset wh...

To explore European identity through European cinema; this is the aim of Project Cinemaas, a project by four Media Culture master’s students. “In the second semester of the master’s we have to do either an internship, a thesis or a collective project”, says Clarence Ceniza. “We chose the collective project.” The group attended three film festivals...

Dutch artist Alain Clark - known from Father & Friend, Blow me Away and This Ain’t Gonna Work - will open Inkom 2011 on the market square on Tuesday, 23 August. After a sensational performance last year, Maastricht singer Fabrizio (pronounced: Febries) will make another appearance this year. He sings Italian pop songs in Maastricht dialect and ...

When I’d procrastinated myself into a midnight session of studying back home, I could always count on Wal-Mart to be open and offering exactly what I’d need to get me through the night. Adapting to the work schedule of shop owners and grocery stores in Maastricht was a challenge – I’d forget and show up at the store after five just to walk back hom...

Momentum Momentum is the debut of the young theatre producer Ananda Puyk, whose work has been received with open arms at a variety of international film festivals. In this show, she plays a woman tired of keeping up appearances in front of the rest of the world. The story is told through images, music and dolls only; there is no speaking. You can ...

Had we been born in the 17th century, you and I, we would not have been friends. This was the time of the Anglo-Dutch wars, the bloody quest for supremacy of the seas, when the Dutch hated the English and the English hated the Dutch. And while the hostilities are long past, their remnants still linger in the English language today. Even the word...

Cinema Arabe festival Work by young Arab filmmakers, from countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, will be shown at the Cinema Arabe festival from Thursday 2 until Sunday 5 June at the Lumière cinema. The festival aims to provide alternative representations of life in Arab countries that contradict the stereotypical images. The films shown – ...

About 1,100 alumni (of 37 different nationalities) are expected to attend the first major Alumni Day on Saturday 28 May, on the occasion of Maastricht University’s 35th anniversary. Every faculty will have its own morning programme. There will be a wine tasting event for former UCM students, discussions at Arts and Social Sciences about the rebell...

On Saturday 28 May a demonstration to support the protests of young people in Spain will take place at the Vrijthof. A group of Spanish students will hand out flyers to give information on the situation in Spain. The demonstration will start at 17.00 and ends at 21.00. CF

This month Tuna Maastricht won three prizes during a festival organised by a local group from La Laguna in Tenerife. The first prize was for showing the most Tuna spirit (Tuna mas Tuna), the second for being the friendliest group (Tuna mas sympatico), and the last for playing the best serenades beneath a balcony (Premio de Ronda). The group has nev...

Our friend and colleague Sofia Tussis passed away last week. She was a third year student at University College Maastricht and a shining light in Maastricht’s student community. Her dedication to write about and engage in the things that mattered to her was an inspiration to all of us who knew and came to love her as the joyful and creative person ...

Last Friday, the Portuguese University of Porto – a relative outsider – won the finals of the second International Case Competition @ Maastricht (ICC@M) organised by the School of Business and Economics. In these competitions, held at universities all over the world, student teams have to solve a business problem and prepare a presentation on the s...

WE Festival ‘Never alone’ is the slogan of the WE Festival 2011. Its aim is to bring together as many students as possible in activities organised in the Landbouwbelang from Wednesday 18 until Sunday 22 May. Workshops in graffiti, journalism, cooking, political activism and dancing are on the programme, as well as a student conference on sustaina...

There are certain bizarre-but-endearing things about the Netherlands that everyone knows about. Clogs, for example. But what I only learned when I moved here was that there are no – or at least, few – selection criteria for university admission. I can just picture the reaction back home: “But how do they keep the dumbasses out?” The short answer, ...

Coming from a place where the automobile is king of the road, it’s refreshing to bike around Maastricht and not fear for my life. When I tried biking to class in Texas, I was nearly clipped by cars or cut off by oblivious students who were texting while walking. After a week of riding my little blue bike here in Europe, I was excited to see that bi...

Queen’s Day You might want to search your closet for an orange outfit: 30 April is Queen’s Day in the Netherlands. Activities and parties will be held in Maastricht the entire weekend. The events kick off with MY-Day on the 29th, an ‘interactive, informative market’ in the park. That evening, several cover bands and DJs will also be playing in the...

As a child in Texas, it was normal to spend a weeknight watching bull-riders and barrel-racers ride on the dirt-floored rodeo arena. I even joined in on the kiddy activities of chasing lambs for cash prizes when I was old enough. I never realised that all this wasn’t a typical family outing everywhere until I came to Europe, where when I mention to...

Our Executive Board finds itself, with an intake of 43% international students in 2009, in a bit of an uncomfortable position. Stick to Dutch, or present the icing on Jo Ritzen's farewell cake and switch to English? The new Strategic Programme speaks of the 'English unless' approach. For example, will this be the end of pla...

Present a new idea with the help of twenty slides, each of which you can comment on for twenty seconds. This – in a nutshell – is the idea behind PechaKucha (Japanese for chit-chat). Twelve people give such a presentation at each PechaKucha night. The idea came originally from two Tokyo architects, and PechaKucha nights have been held in Maastricht...

On Friday 15 April, the Smartlappenfestival in Maastricht will be a great occasion to interact with Dutch culture. Artists will be performing tearjerkers, some with a funny twist, in a dozen crowded cafes in the city centre, including Edd’s Café and In den Ouden Vogelstruys. You can find the full programme here: www.maastrichtnet.nl. The festival s...

The coolest Dutch words are those that don’t exist in English at all. The general concept might exist, but the Dutch flavour just gives it that something extra. Sure, everyone drinks. We all party. But only the Dutch have borrels. Likewise, we all get sick of having to peck the chalky cheeks of ageing relatives every time we see them. But the Dutch...

When I first saw a dog inside a restaurant in Maastricht, my eyes darted around the room to see everyone’s surprised reactions, but to my surprise nobody thought the dog was out of place. Almost every building in Texas has “no pets allowed” signs, and seeing an animal on a bus or in a restaurant means it’s a seeing-eye dog. In Europe, though, I faw...

While sipping my coffee on a beautiful Monday morning disbelief stroke me when reading the Observant (28). I read an opinion article called The fraternity and nothing else, which implied that membership of an association leads to a more asocial attitude towards others. A huge photo of Tragos members during the Inkom showed whom this meant. Unbelie...

April 2011. The student parties are out again in order to warm-up for the up-coming elections. The challenge for everybody again: let's work on our legitimacy! With only around 30% participation in the elections, most students seem to be very reluctant to have confidence in their students parties. Where is the master topic to get the students to th...

If the Executive Board gets its way, English will become the university’s official language. During the last university council meeting, Executive Board member André Postema announced that the next Strategic Programme speaks of ‘English, unless’, which means that Dutch more or less takes second place. “But this is still to be discussed,” he added. ...

“Can you please write about the milk?” “What about it?” “Didn't you notice? There is milk everywhere in the Netherlands. It's so annoying!” To tell you the truth, I hadn't noticed, but once my friend had mentioned it, I became more observant and realized she is right. The Netherlands is probably the only country where you can order a glass of mi...

How to enthuse students for entrepreneurship? Instead of holding another lecture, the Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship (MC4E) is hosting an event called 3 Day Startup (3DS). The concept consists of gathering forty students who will try to set up a technology company in 60 hours, from Friday (May 6th) to Sunday night, and present their busines...

Every year, three million single women in America move into an apartment for the first time. They do not know who lived in the apartment before them, they do not know their landlords, and they don’t bother to change the locks. This is the story of one such woman. After separating from her husband, pretty young doctor Juliet Dermer moves to Brooklyn...

The first time I saw a European mini car from a distance, I mistook it as one of those American battery-operated toy cars; I use this funny memory as a reminder of the vast cultural and environmental differences between the U.S. and Europe. Like a coddling grandparent, America enjoys spoiling its residents like rotten grandchildren. As one of those...

Keep handing out the Top 3% Award – even without the grant – as a token of recognition. This is what students from the School of Business and Economics proposed in the Faculty Council this week. The regulation on reimbursing the tuition fees of the best 3% of UM students will be abolished as of the next academic year. The Executive Board would pre...

In Haiti, hundreds of people are still homeless after the earthquake in January 2010. They have not been forgotten by the group of Maastricht students who together form the band Sono. They will therefore give a benefit concert for Haiti on Friday 8 April in café D’n Hiemel at 20.00. Jazz, gospel and pop music will be on the programme, and there wil...

What is the role of a university in the 21st century? This was the subject of a writing contest for students from the Baltic countries. The three winners won a four-day stay in Maastricht, where they met the ambassadors from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and got to know the city and Maastricht University. The contest was initiated by second-year UC...

There will be an election journal after all, enclosed in Observant. This decision was taken by the Central Polling Committee after receiving a letter from the university council and “signals from various factions, of both students and employees,” says professor Philip Vergauwen, chairman of the polling committee. Initially the polling committee onl...

Before coming overseas, I’d only thought of trains as old railroad systems used to transport coal or cattle. But trains as public transportation became a reality when I rode my first train from Amsterdam to Maastricht; in about two hours, I’d met five new people and was enchanted by all the different languages. A German man with a guitar serenaded ...

Enough is enough for the students of the School of Business and Economics. They claim that the printers still have long queues, paper runs out all the time, and machines keep breaking down for whatever reason. All problems were supposed to have been solved by 1 February; this deadline has now been postponed to 1 April. The students have only one pr...

One wonderful aspect of living in the midst of Europe is that it's so easy to brush up your cultural perspective by visiting other countries. Take a train for two or three hours and bath in a different culture, mentality and language. I once got invited by a Dutch friend to visit Paris together with some friends of hers. Oh, the excitement! Paris, ...

The ninth Jazz Maastricht Masters festival will take place at the Theater aan het Vrijthof on 25 and 26 March. The line-up features famous artists like James Hunter and Bobby McFerrin as well as up-and-comers playing on several stages. Take a look at www.jazzmaastricht.com for information on tickets (you can buy day tickets or a passe-partout) and ...

The men are in tweed with elbow patches, smoking cigars and stroking their beards. The women wear fur and extreme amounts of orange makeup. This is TEFAF, the annual Maastricht event founded in the 1980s and billing itself as ‘the world’s leading art and antiques fair’. One of this year’s main attractions: a Rembrandt dating from 1658. ‘Portrait o...

Before leaving America, our group of students was warned that, if we didn’t want to stand out as foreigners in Maastricht, we should pack more fashionable clothes than we might normally wear in Texas. At our school, it’s completely normal to see a student lounging around campus on a cold day in his sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt (and maybe even a...

UniPartners – an academic consultancy run by Maastricht students – wants to expand into Germany. For the past twenty years, budding economists and managers have been doing research (market research, employee satisfaction surveys, et cetera) for Dutch companies, says Tom Bettelheim, chairman of UniPartners Maastricht and a bachelor’s graduate of Int...

If you’ve ever played the computer game Age of Empires – that’s the sort of geek I am – you’ll know that the Dutch are always bankers. And I for one – hold on to your hats – love Dutch banks. Oh, how I adore and treasure them. Now that I’ve made the switch to Britain’s eternally backwards Lloyds TSB, I appreciate what I had with ABN AMRO. It was on...

True Grit, The King's Speech, The Way Back, Black Swan and 127 Hours. These and 18 other movies will be shown on Thursday 24 March at the Lumière cinema as part of the Maastricht Student Film Night, organised by Saurus debating society Nynève in cooperation with Lumière. Doors will open at 21.30, and the ‘night’ will end around 6.30. The pre-premiè...

As a Texas student who’d never left the US before venturing to the Netherlands, I was accustomed to having pizza delivered and eating it with my hands at home. But this lifelong understanding that pizza is a finger food and goes best with Coke has recently been demolished; apparently it is impolite not to cut your pizza with a knife and fork, and i...

This weekend will mark the start of Carnival, a festival to celebrate the start of the fasting before Easter. For three days, the whole town will go crazy with people dressing up as anything they want. You could go as Bambi or even Yogi Bear – it’s up to you. All sorts of activities take place during Carnival. Here, we highlight two for you: On Sun...

The regulation that meant that the best 3 per cent of UM students had their lecture fees reimbursed, has been abolished. The Executive Board wants to spend the money differently. The Top 3 per cent regulation will be cancelled as of the next academic year. Students who started this year, including those from February 2011, will still qualify. The ...

Next year, no exams will be planned just before Christmas, rector Gerard Mols promised the University Council last week. During question time, Polish European Law School student Aleksandra Kwiek made a strong appeal to the UM management not make the same mistake as last year, when there were exams on 23 December. This was a day when many foreign st...

Do you feel like having a night of comedy while catching up on your cultural knowledge too? Then The Reduced Shakespeare Company is just right for you. On Friday 25 February they will show the entire works of Shakespeare in 97 minutes, while giving their own comical interpretation to the plays. The performance will be held in the C-mine culture cen...

Living abroad means learning excellent new words. And Dutch names are among the most excellent of these. Me being me, I’m a big fan of all those names that mean something completely different in English. Having a girl? Try Joke, or perhaps even Floor. A boy? You can’t go past Flip. Or Taco. Or better yet: Harm (no-one’s messing with that kid in the...

Fietsen (bikes) – is there anything more typically Dutch? Your standard omafiets by Gazelle or Batavus is so emblematic for Dutch culture that it's not only the most popular motif on postcards besides windmills and tulips, it's even simply known as the 'Dutch Bike' outside the Netherlands. But of course, Dutch biking culture is about much more than...

Avoiding the yo-yo effect – that is, gaining weight again after slimming down – is not only a matter of will but of heredity as well. Dr Ping Wang of the Nutrim research institute has identified a gene involved in regulating blood pressure that predicts whether women are prone to yo-yo dieting. The findings were published on Monday in the online sc...

Maastricht. It was fairly busy at last week’s debate on the States-Provincial elections, organised by student association Koko. On Wednesday 2 March the Dutch choose the States-Provincial, which is responsible for matters of sub-national or regional importance. Over a hundred students came to hear the opinions of the liberals (VVD), the labour par...

Want to check out the student nightlife in another city? Take a trip on the Student Nightrider. All you have to do is reserve a seat on the bus, and forget worrying how to get home. Admission to clubs, a map and a tour through the best bars is all arranged for you. The first trip will head to Cologne on 18 February. See www.studentnightrider.com fo...

The saying goes, “God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands”. This is because much of the country lies below sea level, and so consists of polders (land reclaimed from the sea). The upshot: if you lived in the Middle Ages and were at war with your neighbouring city, you still had no choice but to cooperate when it came to maintaining t...

Enjoy a dance performance between study books and pizza boxes, or join a drawing workshop while sitting on a beer crate. This, and more, will be possible during the fifth annual Stukafest on Tuesday 15 February. Stukafest is an abbreviation of Studentenkamerfestival (‘student room festival’), which means that for an entire evening, students in elev...

A central meeting place where all culture-loving students in Maastricht can come together and find out what’s going on. This is the aim of Studium Generale’s new initiative, Cultural Square. Students can register via the website www.culturalsquare.nl and get discounts on cultural activities, the chance to win tickets to various events, and mor...

A friend told me a story that many years ago he fell victim to a pickpocket in an Amsterdam café. The owner had a surveillance camera, so they were able to identify the thief. But when they turned to the police, the officer got angry: the recording was seen as an infringement of the thief's personal rights. Oh, how times have changed! It's hard to ...

Live & Die Like a Lion? is the name of the first Dutch exhibition on the American painter Leon Golub. From 22 January until 25 April, Het Domein museum in Sittard will be showing about fifty drawings made between 1999 and the artist’s death in 2004. Although he is mainly known as a painter, these drawings form the core of Golub’s oeuvre. For mo...

January, for me, has always meant sunshine, beach and barbecues. (This is because I’m one of those upside-down Australians.) And thankfully, that’s precisely the case this year: as I write, I’ve got one foot dangling in a creek and I’m watching a spider crawl idly over the other. Lovely. It’s a far cry from one year ago, when I was – somewhat hars...

Whenever I’m exploring another country, I also like to take an extensive look at the local supermarkets. Not that I like supermarkets as such, but I find that they allow a little peek into the character of a nation. Of course, there are tasty treats like vla, drop and stroopwafels, but there’s much more to discover. The most stunning observation I...

On Friday 21 January the AINSI (Lage Kanaaldijk 112–113) will be all about Klezmer music: Eastern European Jewish sounds, inspired by the culture of the Balkans. Saxophone player Job Chajes and his Amsterdam Klezmer Band will put on an exuberant live show with a large number of songs from their own repertoire. Afterwards DJs Hapu and Sòj, specialis...

Professors and students are worried about the cutbacks in tertiary education. Tomorrow (Friday), there will be a demonstration in The Hague. Anyone else coming along from Maastricht? On Wednesday morning, 285 students had registered – enough to fill six coaches – as well as 21 professors. The professors' coach will depart at 06:15hrs on Friday mor...

We're having lunch at a café, a Dutch friend and I. The waiter brings out the food. Thank you, I say as she sets it down in front of us. Thank you very much. So what’s wrong with this picture? Far too many thank yous, according to my Dutch friend. What am I supposed to say to a waiter? Not a damn thing, says my friend: a genuine Cloggie (granted, ...

Do you ever think about how your life is, and how your life could be? On the evening of Friday 14 January Het Huis van Bourgondië will present Good Cop Bad Cop: a sharp-minded and humorous reflection on everyone’s need to be normal and desire for attention. Tickets cost €5 for students. For more information about this show, which is essentially 50%...

 What you absolutely don't want to happen to you while you’re abroad is to get sick. The health system in your own country is probably intimidating and complicated enough, so adding a foreign language, culture and customs to that is no fun at all! Funnily enough, people – at least in Western countries – seem to believe that their healthcare s...

The latest Economists Top 40, published at the end of last year, lists four researchers from Maastricht University. The highest on the list - at number 15 - is professor Co de Ruyter (marketing); two places below, we find the American professor Daniel Hamermesh (labour economics), followed by John Hagedoorn (strategy and international business) at ...

Joni Mitchell is said to have been one of the most influential singer/songwriters of the past decades. She is known for songs such as Big Yellow Taxi and Both Sides Now. The Dutch singer Charlie Dée will be playing a tribute to Joni Mitchell, who quit performing in 2007, on Friday 7 January in the Theater aan het Vrijthof. She will sing Mitchell’s ...

At 16.00 today, a group of students will hold a demonstration by the statue of Minckeleers (holding a burning torch) at the Markt to call for a democratic and free Belarus. “It’s a country where you end up in prison because of such a demonstration”, says Vincent Venus (21), a second-year German student of European Studies. “Along with Maastricht, 7...

Kruidnoten. Pepernoten. Taai-taai. Speculaas. My flatmate in Cambridge is Dutch – just can’t get away, can I? – and this was the shopping list she gave me when I popped back to Maastricht for a weekend recently. They’re all really Dutch things, she said, and she’s missing them now that Christmas is on its way once again. What they all are, I reali...

Mr and Mrs Murphy are not that pleasant to visit at Christmas. They’re grumpy and stern and when everything goes wrong they only have each other to blame. On 21, 22, 28, 29 and 30 December, actors Wanda Eyckerman and Roel Swanenberg (known from the play Alone in the World), will bring these speechless characters alive in the Theater aan het Vrijtho...

Even after many years, I can't get rid of it. Whenever I hear the abbreviation 'NS', I think of National Socialists and get an uneasy feeling. Ever seen the posters 'Werken bij NS?’ But of course, in the Netherlands NS stands for Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the Dutch railway company. Without the NS, nothing would work in the Netherlands; it's vital to ...

On Saturday 10 December the kick-off of Strictly Vinyl, a party that will take place monthly thereafter, will be held at De Kadans. The aim of the parties is to invigorate the electric music scene in Maastricht. DJ volt.mar from the German-Swiss minimal techno label Minimood and local resident DJ dialog will play minimal techno house. Tickets cost ...

Christmas in Maastricht is going to be magical this year. On Friday 3 December Magisch Maastricht, a programme with various activities all over town, will kick off with a spectacular show by the artists from Corpus Acrobatics at the Vrijthof. Ice-skating, Christmas markets, street theatre and music performances will all be on offer in the streets a...

At the moment, the five members of the Inkom 2011 Working Group spend about twenty hours a week on the preparations, but from 1 January they will go full steam ahead. Four of the five students – Sonja Bongard, Jeroen de Boer, Marianne Boschloo and chairperson Anne van Tetering – have won their spurs in previous years as members of the Central Post,...

A sport’s subscription, a tailcoat, a dinner for fifteen people, and a wine tasting event. These will be auctioned off during the Serious Request Party in the Circumflex club on Wednesday 8 December. The organisation is in the hands of the Red Cross Student Desk and the Maastricht Chamber of Associations. The proceeds from this auction (all goods a...

Students who need more than one year extra to complete their studies, will have to pay €3,000 euros additional lecture fees from next year onwards. This means that they will have to come up with a total of 4,700 euros. In addition, universities will receive a ‘penalty cut’ of another three thousand euros for every slow student. It is not clear at t...

Every year it’s the same procedure, and I assume it’s the same in every country. The weeks preceding Christmas are dominated on the one hand by preparations for the big festivity, and on the other by critical voices complaining that Christmas has allegedly lost its true meaning and is now dominated by purely commercial interests. “The shopkeepers a...

Icy landscapes and idyllic winter scenes: There can be no Dutch Christmas without Anton Pieck. Throughout the course of his life, this beloved artist published over 300 books with drawings inspired by the 19th century. He also created numerous paintings for calendars and Christmas cards, all reflecting the work of Charles Dickens. From 21 November ...

Maastricht. The international student organisation for sustainable economics and management, Oikos, now has a branch in Maastricht. Oikos aims to promote sustainability among students, whom they describe on their website as “the world future leaders. We feel one major challenge our time faces is to find innovative solutions how to use natural resou...

Are you keen to dance to disco music in a tiny café? On Friday 19 November the DJs Sidi El Karchi and Ramazan will get your body swinging in Café Zondag. From 22.00, Wijckerbrugstraat 42. For students who like old-fashioned games like Trivial Pursuit and know just about everything about everything, you can join the trivia quiz – complete with pict...

As a country, your English is just tops. Really. It’s a credit to your education system and your international outlook. But. Stop. Correcting. My. English. Now, this isn’t just me. The phenomenon of Dutch people correcting other people’s English found its way into the academic literature back in 1998, when the British-but-Netherlands-based editor...

Sinterklaas is coming to town. With his red cape, red mitre and long white beard, he is scheduled to arrive by boat in Maastricht on Saturday 13 November. Mayor Onno Hoes and hundreds of children will be there to welcome the Sint and his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten. After his arrival at the Kesselskade, he will make his way through the city towards ...

Thanks to Schengen, crossing the borders to Belgium or Germany is mostly free of hassle. The days of heavy border controls are almost as far away as the Dark Ages. Not too long ago, the situation was different, and much more hostile. It's hard to imagine, but in the first decade after the war, more than thirty people were killed in fights between s...

In the past, a psychology student contesting an exam grade or an economics student who is a victim of sexual harassment had to approach the Secretariat of the Board of Appeal for Examinations and a confidential advisor, respectively. Now there is one office for all student complaints. The office, which falls under Student Services, does not deal w...

Maastricht. The pressure on universities to increase the number of students who graduate with their bachelor’s degree within four years is rising. Should measures be taken? How would this influence student life? These and more topics will form the subject of a debate on Tuesday 16 November. Studium Generale has invited a panel including Faculty of ...

I am referring to page 5 of the newspaper from 28 October 2010 and the article concerning free bike repairs. The article has nothing to do with what actually happened on 2 November. I, personally, decided to go and let my broken bike light be repaired. The men from Veilig Verkeer Nederland took a look at my bike light and told me that it will cost...

The additional fee of 950 euro that would have been asked from 2011 onwards to new UCM students, caused a lot of turmoil in the College. It was announced, without informing students or staff about it. That was a mistake. However bad the communication was, it does not render the arguments for the fee invalid. The implementation of the fee was not c...

In antwoord op vragen van Observant stelt Ad Veenhof, voorzitter van de Raad van Toezicht, dat de nieuwe voorzitter van het CvB niet méér zal gaan verdienen dan de wopt-norm, laat staan de hogere Balkenende-norm. Hij voegt dan toe: “Om dan nog van die norm af te wijken moeten er wel héél goede redenen zijn.” Ik vraag me af wat die redenen zouden ku...

The next destination of the World Press Photo Exhibition is Maastricht. From Friday 5 to Sunday 28 November, Centre Céramique will be showing the outcome of the annual photography competition for photojournalists. At 14.00 on 5 November, an English-language tour of the travelling exhibition will be held specially for students. If you’d like to take...

The new bachelor’s programme of Science that will be offered by University College the next academic year has caused irritation among various Dutch sister universities. In particular Eindhoven University of Technology is vexed. The latter fears fragmentation of science studies and accuses Maastricht of breaking the agreement made at a national leve...

University employees will not receive a 500-euros bonus this autumn, nor will there be a half-percent wage rise. The association of universities has turned down a draft proposal with the unions. Maastricht University was one of the institutes that felt that there was no room for compensations of any kind. The unions are preparing for action. André ...

It’s not as readily apparent as Geert Wilders’s hair or, you know, the orange stuff everywhere. The zesjescultuur is subtler than that. It won’t hit you over the head like a glass of Heineken. But it’s there. For the uninitiated, the ‘sixes culture’ is a sort of complacency, apparently the spawn of the Dutch educational system where you only ever ...

Last week, students from the School of Business and Economics won an ‘international case competition’, this time held in Singapore. This represents their third victory – after Bangkok and Copenhagen – in 14 months. In a case competition, student teams have to solve a real-life business problem and prepare a presentation on the solution while being ...

Next Monday the city of Maastricht will have a new mayor: Onno Hoes (49). He’s member of the liberal party VVD and former regional minister in the province of North-Brabant. With his choice ends a long tradition of Christian Democrat mayors in the university’s city. Hoes replaces Gerd Leers – now integration Minister in the new Dutch cabinet. ...

Coming from a German university, I was initially surprised to see how organised and efficient everything at UM is. You might not believe me, but compared to other European universities, Maastricht is bliss. Students here tend to complain if they have to wait a few weeks to get their exam results. I graduated recently from a Belgian university and w...

Maastricht. Being the well-integrated international student that you are, naturally you bought yourself a bike as soon as you stepped on Dutch soil. So it could well be that by now the light has stopped working. If so, it’s your lucky day. On 2 November from 11 am until 5 pm, volunteers from the Dutch cycling federation and traffic safety organisat...

Did you know Maastricht is the poetry capital of Europe? At least, that’s the case in October 2010. From 28 until 30 October, the La Bonbonniѐre theatre is organising The Maastricht International Poetry Nights, where well-established poets from all over the world will share their work with the audience. All verses will be recited in the original la...

Jekerjazz is back on track. After years of successful corporation with Jazz Maastricht, both organisations have decided to return to their roots. This year, the popular jazz festival, located mainly in the inner city neighbourhood Jekerkwartier, will celebrate its 20th anniversary. From 14 until 17 October, about 120 blues, funk and other jazz-rela...

Not only the cost price of a study programme, but also the international market are the cause of the huge differences in lecture fee rates for non-European students. This is one of the outcomes of an inventory by Transfer among schools of higher education and universities. Non-European students pay a small fortune to do a bachelor's or master's st...

Want to see fascinating tricks that no one understands? It’s possible. World-famous Dutch illusionist Hans Klok is touring the country with his new show, called Hurricane. He will try to deceive the audience’s senses with his dazzling conjuring tricks. Knowing Klok, he will bowl over many of his spectators. Hurricane can be seen at the Vrijthof The...

Last Friday marked a significant change for the Netherlands. No, I’m not talking about the scary fact that far-right populist Geert Wilders gained decisive influence in the national government, but something else: since 1 October, kraken (which in Dutch refers to squatting an abandoned house, not a monster from the depth of the seas) is illegal in ...

“When graduating from university, I applied – like millions before and after me – for an internship at the European Commission”, said Prof. Thomas Christiansen (1965) in his inaugural lecture at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences two weeks ago. As an applicant he didn’t rely on his CV but went through a contact, who told him that the competiti...

Students into dance should stay in Maastricht during the weekend of 1–3 October, when Maastricht will host the Nederlandse Dansdagen (Dutch Dance Days) at the Theater aan het Vrijthof and other locations. The line-up includes acts ranging from urban to classical dance and makes way for both well-known and newer dance companies. Visit www.nederlands...

The Netherlands. The Christian democrats of the CDA, the conservative party VVD and the anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders (PVV) have reached an agreement. Wilders called it a historic moment. “Left-wing politics have no role to play in the upcoming years. That’s good for the Netherlands, good for my party and good for the voters.”  A right-...

I’ve just landed at Schiphol airport. Near Arrivals, I spot one of those stands holding free advertising postcards. I like colourful things – and I love free things – so I take a handful to browse through in the passport control queue. There’s a photo of an absurdly attractive couple in head-to-toe H&M. Close-ups of grinning mouths with shiny d...

There are many clichés about the Netherlands: tulips, windmills, cheese, the red light district in Amsterdam and its liberal drug laws. Like all clichés, they are far from accurate and nobody takes them very seriously. The Dutch drug laws, however, are a special case. While one can easily laugh about any cliché, many Dutch people seem to be quite a...

“Amazing” and “In one word: gay; in two words: super gay”. These are two reactions to the lip dub of the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (SBE). The YouTube video has been viewed 20,000 times over the last five days. A music video that was made in a single take, it shows a group of students dancing and lip synching to Queen’s ...

Pop, rock, jazz and hip hop; Maastricht will have it all. On the night of Friday 24 September, Popronde, a travelling Dutch music festival, will drop by and present a selection of the last word in the music industry. Over thirty fresh, talented, but still unknown bands will perform at several locations in the city centre (including the Lumiѐre and ...

Student association Koko scores well among foreign students. They registered 29 new non-Dutch members this year (against 25 last year, and ten in 2008). The number is not definite, as Koko still has to inaugurate its new members. The counter stopped at eleven for Saurus, at eight for Circumflex and five for Tragos. Koko received a total of 191 (ag...

It doesn’t have to take long to present a good idea. The Pecha Kucha Night, on Monday 20 September, is living proof of this. With just twenty slides and twenty seconds of explanation per slide, Maastricht’s most creative brains will try to convince you of their latest ideas. The concept of Pecha Kucha (meaning ‘chit-chat’ in Japanese) allows archit...

Although it has been some time ago since Microsoft introduced Windows 7 and received high praise, Maastricht University does not yet support the new operating system. Why not? “Other projects were higher on our list of priorities, but the proposal is being put together at the moment,” says Jo Weijers, head of ICT Service Centre. As far as he is con...

You’ve got lots of old stuff in the Netherlands. Old ruins. Old churches. The oldest theme park in the world. The oldest stock exchange. Old people. In fact, you were building windmills here a good 400 years before my country was even discovered. By your very own Willem Janszoon, as it happens, who accidentally bumped into Australia in 1606, took o...

Following on from the opening of the academic year, the Theater aan het Vrijthof is hosting the opening of the cultural season. At the Parcours, Maastricht’s theatres, museums, drama societies and other cultural organisations present themselves on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 September. For instance, you can join in the celebrations for the sixtieth a...

A few famous man-made structures can be seen from space, like the Great Wall of China or the Belgian highways at night. What would be the characteristic landmarks of the NetherlandsIf Google Earth had a live view option, no doubt you’d be able to witness a peculiar phenomenon at least once a year: the great vacation migration. Seemingly endless flo...

Last Monday, during the opening of the academic year, the new sustainability centre was opened and UCM students Felix Spira and Ardjan Vermue, who belong to the group of initiators, gave a presentation. At the Green Office, temporarily located in the Language Centre at Sint Servaasklooster, employees and students can drop by with their ideas or que...

The Christian democrats of the CDA, the conservative party VVD and the anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders (PVV) want to restart their negotiations. It was only last Friday that Wilders decided to pull out of talks to form a coalition government, claiming that he had lost confidence in supporting a Liberal (VVD)–Christian Democrat (CDA) cabinet. Th...

In 2012 the Lumière cinema, now located at the Bogaardenstraat, will move to the Timmerfabriek in the Boschstraat. There are plans to establish six theatres there with a total of 500 seats (the current Lumière has 326 seats). The Timmerfabriek – a former joinery works belonging to the Sphinx factory – is set to become the new cultural centre of Maa...

No queues of students ignorant of their timetables or even of their status as registered students, no lecturers waiting resignedly for their students to show up; problems resulting from bugs in the student registration system MUSL last year, have been resolved. The university's top IT manager, CIO René Kocken has confirmed this. “It works for stude...

The first time I saw it, I thought it was quaint. The second time, so-so. But from the third to the fifty billionth time, it’s just made me want to scratch my eyeballs out. No, I’m not talking about Geert Wilders. I’m talking about the Dutch love of titles – lots of them. Like Dr. ing. Whatshisname. Or Mrs Prof. Whatsherface. Not to mention the mo...

On Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 September, the Markt in Maastricht will form the stage for the festival Bruis. Saturday is pop and rock day, with the Belgium band dEus set to take the spotlight. This will be one of only few performances that they will give in the Netherlands this summer. Sungrazer, Oi Va Voi and the Dudes will also be present. On Sunday...

Since Monday the Inner City University Library has been open until midnight, seven days a week. In the Coffee Corner you can buy refreshments until 20.30. Previously, the UL’s doors were only open till late in the evening during exam periods. “You see this a lot in foreign countries. Some libraries are even open 24/7”, says UL director Ingrid Wijk...

The elections were held in June, but the Netherlands is still waiting for a new government. Negotiations between the Christian democrats of the CDA, the conservative party VVD and the anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders (PVV) are interrupted. Tuesday evening and Wednesday the Christian democrats held a crisis meeting whether to continue negotiation...

More than 530 Maastricht students have already had themselves inoculated against mumps, according to the Local Health Authority (GGD). The GGD advises students to have themselves vaccinated, regardless of whether they were vaccinated as children (which is often the case in The Netherlands and the rest of Europe) or not. Dozens of cases of mumps we...

A former law student of Maastricht University and former columnist for Observant is to receive compensation from GeenStijl. GeenStijl is a Dutch website where the news and light-hearted subjects are discussed. They have a reputation for their use of a direct, often rude and offensive tone. The court in Amsterdam has ruled that GeenStijl should pay...

The popularity of master’s programmes in Maastricht is growing strongly, having received 26 percent more applications than last year (5633 in total). The number of bachelor’s applications is also on the rise, but by a somewhat less dramatic 6 percent, reaching a total of 11,201. In 2010, all Dutch universities together count 42,500 newcomers among...

What are you going to miss the most? “My cat. He’s five years old and just turned up at our home one Christmas. It was a wild cat. I can’t bring him with me to Maastricht. I’ll also miss my friends of course. Whether we’ll see each other on a regular basis? Well, we could skype. In the holidays I’ll take the Eurostar from Brussels. That’s the eas...

Whats gonna be easy? “Nothing will be easy. I have to build up a life in a new country with a different language. Even buying a bike will be hard, I suppose.”   What will you miss the most? “My family of course. My mother and my sister, who live in Riga. And my friends. Actually, my best friend is going to the Netherlands as well. He’ll b...

What’s going to be easy? “I like the fact that Dutch education is well-organised. You get all this information in advance about study schemes, for example. In my country it’s total chaos. First you need to search for the institution, and then you have to chase the people who can give you the information you want.”   What are you afraid of? ...

Whats gonna be easy? “Learning the Dutch language. Dutch in my opinion is something like a mix between German and English. I had Greek and Latin at school. That makes it easier to learn foreign languages.”   What are you afraid of? “My roommate in Maastricht, who studied psychology last year, said that it’s very difficult. And – this is th...

Are you keen to stay informed of the latest news, and to read great stories about Maastricht’s student life and university? Then grab your fresh copy of the Observant from around 11.00 every Thursday, from the stands near the entrance to your faculty. Observant is Maastricht University’s independent newspaper, produced each week by a team of profe...