Week of the Internatonal Experience

What is the Week of the International Experience?

During the Week of the International Experience (WotIE), we emphasise the importance of gaining international experience for both Dutch and international students. There are many different ways for them to gain this international experience. By connecting Dutch and international students, they can learn from each other and discover other cultures and perspectives.

We encourage vocational and higher education institutions in the Netherlands to participate and to organise their own activities during this week. From talk shows to walks: the aim of these WotIE activities is to connect, inspire and make students enthusiastic.

Participation in the activities should be free of charge for students. In addition to activities for students, you can also consider activities for alumni, staff and lecturers. Join in by organising your own activity!

What activities can you organise?

We understand that you may want to know what other educational institutions have organised in the past so that you can draw inspiration from them. Below, we have compiled a number of activities that have been organised by various educational institutions in the past. We hope this will help you with your organisation.

Tip: Involve the wellbeing and diversity staff in the activities. Also consider alumni, study associations and student associations such as ESN.

Informative activities:

• Study abroad meetings for students
• Panel discussion with internal stakeholders about internationalisation within the educational institution
• Guest lecture by an international lecturer or well-known speaker/influencer
• Labour market meeting for international students or Dutch students who want to work for international companies
  Workshop on doing business internationally or networking
• Play the Go!forall game with colleagues who work with students who are going abroad for their studies or internship.
• Museum visit (Wereldmuseum)

Social activities:

• Meetings such as game night, language café, pop-up cinema, lunch, potluck dinner, speed-friending, etc.
• Music festival
• Postcard station (students send cards to family or friends abroad)
• Walks through the city (possibly in collaboration with the Frisse Gedachtes organisation)

Inspiring activities:

• International students can indicate where they come from on a physical world map. Dutch students can indicate where they would like to go.
• International dishes in the restaurant or food fair
• Photo exhibition
• Theatre show (with dance and singing)
• You can draw attention to this week on social media by: Interviewing Dutch and international students about their international experiences, possibly in the form of a podcast.
• Highlight certain countries in this week.

Promotional materials

We have developed promotional materials that you can use within your educational institution to draw attention to the Week of the International Experience. Currently, only the logos are available, but this will be supplemented later with headers for Word documents, posters and social media posts.

logo with orange background: (preferred)
logo in RGB
logo in CMYK
logo with white background:
logo in RGB
logo in CMYK

More information

For more information, questions or to make an appointment to brainstorm with us online, please email wotie@nuffic.nl. We are happy to advise and contribute ideas!

There is also a special Teams group where anyone involved in organising this week within educational institutions can exchange ideas and find inspiration. Email wotie@nuffic.nl if you would like to join this group.