Bring Friends Home Instead of Laundry on the Weekends

Recently, while addressing an audience at a university open day, I was asked if I had any advice for prospective students wanting to attend an international bachelor’s program. While some people perhaps expected me to share tips to increase their chances of being admitted, I didn’t. Instead, realizing that the majority of attendees were Dutch, I took the opportunity to share how my Dutch friends enriched my experience as an international student. Simply put, my advice was not to go home on the weekends too often—and when they did go home, to bring some friends along. Immediately after, I caught several parents grinning at their kids, who would shortly flee the nest and come home to have their clothes laundered.

While not all Dutch students live in the city they study in, for those who do, starting a new life in another city comes with certain challenges associated with independent living for the first time. Feelings of homesickness and the tendency to head back to the comforts of familiarity are natural. International students face similar challenges to a lesser or greater degree, with the exception that going home on the weekend usually isn’t an option.

Reflecting on my time as a student, what really helped forge relationships between my Dutch friends and me were the quiet weekends spent together and the occasional invitations to visit their hometowns. The latter gave me a looking glass into Dutch households, leading to several discoveries that might not seem obvious to non-Dutch natives. For example, I initially noted with great curiosity how calendars scribbled with birthdays consistently appeared in my friends’ childhood homes. Eccentricities aside, visiting these places gave me a better understanding of how my friends grew up and how those places shaped them. In doing so, I got to know them on a deeper level and, at the same time, explored parts of the Netherlands not typically associated with tourist destinations. In those moments, I felt extremely welcomed and began developing a sense of home while living in a foreign place.

So, if you’re Dutch or an exchange student reading this, I hope you’re convinced to stick around more often on the weekends. While the campus or building you live in might be quieter than you’re used to, I bet your chances of getting to know someone from outside your “vereniging” would increase. Once you’ve gotten to know this person or group well enough, dig up the courage to show them around your hometown one weekend. It might just be the start of lifelong relationships—platonic, romantic, or otherwise.