‘The campus will be a unique selling point for us when promoting the UT in India,’ says Sudeep. ‘As of September, we are officially the UT India Office, operating out of an office in the city of Chennai.’
Cultural differences
According to Sudeep, such an office is absolutely necessary. ‘That’s due to the Indian culture,’ she explains. ‘Students won’t just up and leave to go abroad of their own accord. Parents have a lot of influence on such big decisions. Not just because they will want to serve as guarantors, but also because they want to be sure that their son or daughter will end up in a good place.’
The India Office is not the only foreign UT office. There is also a small office in China, geared mainly towards improving the institutional cooperation between the UT and Chinese universities.
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In India, the focus is more on recruitment. And it’s going well, says Sudeep. ‘We have already organised three events in several Indian cities. And the response we have been getting is great. We want to build on showcasing the UT brand. We really want to be an advertisement for and point of contact on behalf of the UT in India.’
Sudeep says that the level of the students that the India Office will be recruiting on behalf of the UT is somewhat uncertain. ‘In the end, it’s up to the admissions teams and the UT faculties to select students. We can only make sure that the students’ level is sufficient as far as we know, and that they will probably be a good fit.’
Attracting fifty new students
Sudeep feels it is clear why Indian students should be opting for the UT. ‘It’s a very enterprising campus university, highly ranked, largely Anglophone, and they will be given a few years’ time after they graduate to find a job in the Netherlands. On top of that, the admissions fee is several thousands of euros lower than that of, say, TU Delft.’
Sudeep hopes to recruit at least fifty students for the next academic year. ‘This year, we recruited twenty-one. There are now around sixty Indian students in total studying at the UT. I expect we will be able to recruit at least thirty-five more for next year.’
What’s the benefit for the UT in recruiting more Indian students? Sudeep: ‘They contribute to a multicultural environment on campus. That’s certainly a great benefit. On top of that, Indian students are highly skilled in technical matters.’ Laughing, she closes with the following: ‘Last, but certainly not least, us Indians are excellent at communicating!’
