On course for success
The European Union may have had a difficult 12 months, but interest in postgraduate EU studies is still healthy.
European Voice’s 12th EU Studies Fair, which was held in Brussels on 11-12 February, showed that, whatever the travails of the eurozone, academic interest in the EU is still flourishing.
The event, now expanded to two days, is aimed at students looking to pursue master’s courses in EU studies (or the related subjects of law, economics, international relations and political science), and at colleges and universities offering such courses.
Nearly 150 students took part in visits to the European Parliament or the European Commission on Friday morning. In the afternoon, at the offices of the EU’s Committee of the Regions, they took part in seminars about the place of the European Union in the world.
In a discussion of the EU’s still emerging foreign policy, the students had many questions about the EU’s performance during the upheaval in Tunisia and Egypt, and on the prospects for the EU’s further enlargement.
In a debate about the business and regulatory environment in Europe compared to other parts of the world, students asked about the US’s advantages in attracting entrepreneurs and setting up businesses. Many wanted to know how the EU could protect companies’ intellectual property rights in such countries as China.
Making plans
On Saturday, European Voice hosted a fair at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Place Rogier in Brussels, at which nearly 50 universities were represented and which attracted students of more than 60 nationalities. A steady flow of students kept the university representatives busy as they answered questions and explained their courses.
Jochem Struelens, 24, an undergraduate at Maastricht University, was on the look-out for master’s courses, though he admitted that the likelihood was that he would stay at Maastricht. A Belgian national, he had made a false start in Belgian universities before – in economics, which for him had been the wrong subject – and was now happy living in Maastricht. But after touring the stands, he said that he had been interested by some of the courses offered elsewhere. His career plans at the moment are to work in the non-governmental sector. He had concluded from the experience of an internship that he would not be content working in the public sector.
Janna van Diepen, also 24, in the second year of her undergraduate studies at Maastricht, would like to work eventually in journalism, and was looking for a master’s that would be a good preparation. A German national, she had been particularly interested by the universities of Kent and Amsterdam.
Saturday’s fair also featured seminars about EU studies, hosted by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, and about the jobs market, hosted by the European Personnel Selection Office.
? Copies of European Voice’s EU Studies Guide 2011, distributed with last week’s edition of the news-paper, are available from [email protected]