Breakfast and pub crawl back in TOP-week

The bar breakfast is re-introduced to the TOP-week 2012. The condition is that no alcohol is served. The pub crawl, apparently a crucial part of introduction to Tilburg, is also back in the official program.

To the dissatisfaction of cafes in Tilburg, the pub breakfast disappeared from TOP-week’s programs for two years. The university has now decided that breakfast can be offered again. TOP-week was formerly known as TIK-week.

Other good news is that the pub crawl is back. It was abolished because students drinking alcohol negatively influence the image of the introduction week. The university now writes: “The pub crawl last year also took place but was not mentioned in the official program. The pub crawl this year in back in the program in order to increase monitoring and verification, and to present more opportunities for the hospitality industry. ”

Study Introduction Days are moved from the end of the week to the beginning of the week. The expectation is that students will absorb more information on Monday and Tuesday. It comes as no surprise that the study introduction days on Thursday are poorly attended, if the students actively socialize the previous night. The faculties continue to”take a good look at the structure of the study days, so that there is a better connection between social and general components of the introduction week. ” Both Dutch and international students were critical in their assessment of the social activities during the study days.

Last year the introductory weeks was organized for Dutch and international students together for the first time. The university writes that  “On the whole, the parties welcomed the integration of national and international students.”However, there is a lot of room for improvement. According to the faculties, the problem with the mixed TOP-week is that there are not many international students in groups, and this as a reason for limited integration. The student organizations think that the needs of international students are not addressed well, and suggest coming back to the idea of separate activities for Dutch and international students. The international offices think the introduction program was still too much focused on the Dutch students and suggest incorporating more international activities in the program.

The university will continue with the mixed introduction week. It has been decided that more international students will be placed in each group. Instead of one or two international students per group, there will be an average of four.

The survey about the TOP-week 2011 was filled only by 58 Dutch participants and 29 international participants. This is not a representative sample, since there were 2900 participants.