She knows all about that, about how bad you can feel on your own in a new city. No family nearby, no housemates or fellow students with whom you hit it off well, not wanting to become a member of a student association or a sport’s association with all kinds of obligations. Third-year psychology student Amber Morley, involved with the UM community, arrived in Maastricht in the autumn of 2018. “I only made a definite choice of study programme in the summer, and apparently it was too late to find a decent room (I wasn’t aware that there was such a shortage).” So, for weeks she travelled up and down, from Brussels to Maastricht and vice versa. Tiring and stressful. “I was constantly afraid that the train would be delayed and I would not achieve my compulsory attendance. It was a poor start.”
She found a studio in October, but loneliness struck. She suspended her studies and returned to her parents. “Mainly because of my health, I suffer from epilepsy.” The gap year was good for her, she says. Morley picked up her studies again a year later. “I found a room with super nice housemates. Despite the pandemic I no longer felt alone. I finally felt like I ‘belonged somewhere’. You want everyone to have that. With the UM community we are trying to realise that.”
Annadal
“We set up the UM community last September,” says Véronique Vancauwenbergh, project manager of Student Wellbeing at the UM. “It is a student community in which it is all about well-being; doing fun things together.” In the N building at Annadal on the Brouwersweg they have their own space, a hub. You can paint there (see photo), talk, get a drink, watch a film. Since recently, there are also study spaces (at fixed times and days), “to get away from your own room for a while”, says Morley.
As one of the fifteen peer supporters within the UM community [in addition, there is also a university-wide peer support project, ed.], Morley offers a listening ear. When it is needed, she can make her fellow students aware of the ‘help network’ of psychological counsellors and student advisors. “As a first-year student, I didn’t even know student advisors existed.”
Lack of help
Loneliness is prevalent among many (especially foreign) students, the Polish Mateusz Kubow, third-year student at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, head of the UM community, has noticed. “We saw that students like being together. Unfortunately, we have not been able to organise as much as we wanted due to COVID-19 measures, but you see that there is an interest. Sometimes, thirty people show up, sometimes ten. It still has to grow.”
Student organisation LSVb and ISO already warned in February that international students could find themselves in a fix due to loneliness, Covid pandemic and strict regulations (for example, the agreement that European students have to work 56 hours a month to be eligible for student financing). “International students bring knowledge, experience and culture to the Netherlands, but they get a lot of loneliness, high work pressure and lack of help in return,” Lisanne de Roos from The Dutch National Student Association, stated.
Train journeys
Kubow can say plenty about it too. He came to Maastricht in 2019. “I felt alone. I mainly met a lot of German and Dutch students who seemed to get together in their own groups. I was also in doubt whether I was good enough for this study programme and didn’t feel strong mentally.” In addition, I also had to earn money, “I have experience in catering, but I didn’t manage to find anything.” He ended up in Roermond, as a sales person in the Designer Outlet. “I hated it. I found it to be an unfriendly environment and I worked long days.” Moreover, he lived in Heerlen, “because I couldn’t find anything in Maastricht”. He also had to pay for train journeys. “I find it unbelievable that foreign students don’t receive some form of compensation, whereas the Dutch can travel for free.” He took the train to Maastricht in off-peak hours, so in the early hours, so that he could get some kind of reduction. “It was exhausting.”
Now that he is working for the UM community, it is a win-win situation. He is there for others and “I feel better myself for doing so”.