SAMUDRAKI

      Samudraki's Saturdays Financing student life in the Netherlands can be quite hard if you don't have support from your parents, and especially as an international student because things are 3x more expensive for you than for local Dutch students. Most students opt for a part-time student job alongside their study to earn some extra cash to pay bills or just to have a bit more luxury. Whatever your reason may be, finding a student job when you don't speak Dutch and in a student town can be quite difficult. Don't worry, in this blog I will highlight a few tips and tricks that helped get a student job without speaking a word of Dutch! Keep in mind, that you will be paid minimum wage which means you can earn between €400 - €2000 per month depending on the job and number of hours you put in.  1. Find jobs using the Facebook 'Jobs' tab Yes, Facebook may seem outdated now with all the new apps coming into market, however for job seekers this is a little secret tha

    Samudraki's Saturdays In today's interview I spoke to a final year student who took up multiple degrees at once and is about to start their thesis and wrap up their bachelor's. Read below to find out more about balancing multiple studies and having an active social life.  Q. What do you study at university? A. I'm studying my bachelor's in Astronomy, Applied Physics and Mathematics. Yes, I am doing 3 separate degrees together!  Q. Oh wow! What made you decide to take up multiple degrees at once?  A. So I actually started with Astronomy in the first year, but I thought it was not very challenging. I decided to take up another degree that will complement my studies and give me more in-depth knowledge about the inner workings of the universe. So I took up Applied Physics & Mathematics in the second year. Also, the government subsides the degrees if you pass them all at once so it was definitely cheaper and more time-effective instead of paying alot of fees for

      Samudraki's Saturdays The Netherlands just witnessed a record breaking frost with sub-zero temperatures a few weeks ago. Alongside that, I just started my online university. Here's my experience on the first few weeks back to university life and starting masters in the winter!  Let me start this blog by saying that I never experienced online university when the whole world went into a lockdown, because by then I was done with all my exams and only had my thesis left to finish, which got switched into a theoretical research paper instead of a practical research paper. I was bummed because I got the topic of my dreams but I couldn't physically go to the lab and make a perfume, only in theory.   Expectations out of online university  So a month before starting university, I was frantically texting my old classmates and asking them about their experiences with online university and any tips to survive the first week. The main advice I received was to treat online universi

    Samudraki's Saturdays This is the first post of the 6-part interview series. I'll be interviewing 6 students about their university experiences as an international student in The Netherlands. I will share the stories anonymously to maintain the privacy of the students as well as not getting sued by their universities. In today's interview I am going to start with sharing my own story of taking a gap year after graduating from my bachelors degree program. Ruined plans thanks to a global pandemic and an unexpected enrolment into a masters degree program due to no jobs, this is quite the gap year story. Read to find out more! Q. What did you study at university? A. I just recently graduated in August 2020 with a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering. It was a 3-year degree program but I took an extra year due to back log and did my bachelor research project (Thesis) online thanks to Covid-19! I was really looking forward to working on experiments to make a perfume

      Samudraki's Saturdays Happy New Year to all my happy readers! 2020 taught me alot of life lessons since Covid-19 kept me at home and gave me lots of time to introspect. Thus, this year I want to make the best of 2021. With the vaccine distribution starting soon, hope is just on the horizon and we'll all finally wake up from this nightmarish pandemic that caused global havoc.  This year I will be going back to university to pursue a master's degree at the University of Groningen in Chemical Engineering. Truth be told, this was never my life plan because I wanted to start working right after my bachelor's but companies became very selective and set new entry-level requirements such as having a masters degree. It took me a while to swallow that information, but I am definitely looking forward to expanding my knowledge in the field, making new friends and achieving personal growth. Besides, the pay hike between a bachelor's entry level job versus master's entr

  Samudraki's Saturdays Dutch university life revolves alot around student associations, and that does not equals partying the whole week and drinking lots of beer. You'll be surprised to know that alot of the student associations are actually made around your own study programme and plenty around sporting activities. If you have been to the open day events at the university, chances are you would have been shoved with flyers in your face and students at various stalls promoting their association either with freebies or yummy treats to get you to sign up. So now that you have 50 flyers, how do you choose which one to go to? Well, guess what you can sign up for as many as YOU like! There's no restrictions and majority of these associations ask for a small monthly or yearly fee as a way to keep you committed ;) In my first year I was part of 4 associations at the same time! It was hectic, but alot of fun and I made my closest friends there. So in this blog, I am going to bust