Xenophobe

if not lazy . Dutch student population was shocked by this whole cohort of energized foreign students who were eager and motivated.

There were some disadvantages to the new system, of course. After all the damage that’s already been done, you don’t convert a cognitive psychologist into whatever kind of designer in two years, no matter what our brochure says. Then there were some cultural differences, but in time you learn, and you don’t ask Asian students how they want to approach a project (“Sir, what do you want me to do?”), American students whether they’re sure of these numbers (“Of course they are”), and you don’t ask Dutch students about their dreams (because they don’t have them).

You deal with it, you learn from it. Except for the part where I have to teach in sign language. All prospective master’s students take a test to see whether they are ready to be taught in English. However, from some of the reports I’ve had to read, and the conversations I found myself in, I have to conclude that our English test was probably made for access to Disneyland. Or the Dutch landscape has a ravaging effect on some students’ English language skills. Either way, what do you do if the problem is not that a report is written in a peculiar version of the English language, but that you actually have doubts whether the report is about the course you are giving? A simple request: please raise the level of the English level access test. And verify whether students will be capable of writing a sensible graduation report by having the ones that took (purchased) the test back home retake it upon arrival in Delft.

For a while I was worried that by writing this I might be harassed by people feeling insulted. Then I realized those odds are quite small, because this is written in English. You can call me a xenophobe anyway. If you can spell it, that is.

I’m writing in English this time, because I believe you shouldn’t insult people behind their backs. When TU Delft introduced the bachelor-master system and the first master students arrived from abroad, the laid-back . if not lazy . Dutch student population was shocked by this whole cohort of energized foreign students who were eager and motivated.

There were some disadvantages to the new system, of course. After all the damage that’s already been done, you don’t convert a cognitive psychologist into whatever kind of designer in two years, no matter what our brochure says. Then there were some cultural differences, but in time you learn, and you don’t ask Asian students how they want to approach a project (“Sir, what do you want me to do?”), American students whether they’re sure of these numbers (“Of course they are”), and you don’t ask Dutch students about their dreams (because they don’t have them).

You deal with it, you learn from it. Except for the part where I have to teach in sign language. All prospective master’s students take a test to see whether they are ready to be taught in English. However, from some of the reports I’ve had to read, and the conversations I found myself in, I have to conclude that our English test was probably made for access to Disneyland. Or the Dutch landscape has a ravaging effect on some students’ English language skills. Either way, what do you do if the problem is not that a report is written in a peculiar version of the English language, but that you actually have doubts whether the report is about the course you are giving? A simple request: please raise the level of the English level access test. And verify whether students will be capable of writing a sensible graduation report by having the ones that took (purchased) the test back home retake it upon arrival in Delft.

For a while I was worried that by writing this I might be harassed by people feeling insulted. Then I realized those odds are quite small, because this is written in English. You can call me a xenophobe anyway. If you can spell it, that is.