Hi, my name is Jennifer Weingarten.

I’m from Cologne in Germany and currently living in Enschede where I am studying International Business Administration at the University of Twente. During High School I spent one year in Florida where I realised how important it is to do a business study in English. When I attended a fair in Cologne and received flyers from different universities in the Netherlands, I became enthusiastic about studying here. I heard about International Business Administration offered by the University of Twente and decided to check it out. The Open Day was extremely well organised; I had all my questions answered and got to visit the campus as well as the city of Enschede. After this, I knew that this study was just what I was looking for.

Living and studying in Enschede

Hence, I moved to Enschede straight after high school and was fortunate to find a room quickly. I currently live in a student house on campus with 12 Dutch and one other German student. We have dinner together every evening and do a lot of nice things, like bowling. Back in Germany I actively took part in volleyball and jazz dance. Here I also joined these two sport associations. I play volleyball in a mixed team, which is great fun. It’s a very social group in which we also do other activities together besides playing volleyball. This socialising within the group is also a fun way for me to improve my Dutch.

I have furthermore joined the IBA promotion team. We inform parents and potential students about the IBA programme during Open Days and visit schools to give presentations about the course. I enjoy this work because I want to share my experiences with the IBA programme with others.

Combination of theory and practice

The programme offers the best elements of its German and Dutch counterparts, with a combination of theory and practice. At first I was worried that this could be very different to what I was used to from school, but the small groups and personal supervision have, in fact, proven to be a great source of support.

For example, our course for Business English & Communication Skills consists of a group of 8 students; we all get the attention and help we need. Besides attending lectures, I also have to read and study on my own. This is called self-study and I usually go to the library for this as there are no distractions. A lot of IBA students also study there which is a huge motivator.

Regarding the coming years, I know for sure that I’d like to study or do my internship abroad. So it’s great that our curriculum accommodates this. I’m not entirely sure where I’d like to go yet although I’d be really interested in Sweden or Finland. Australia would also be very interesting!