Stories

104 results
  • The musical, athletic psychologist

    One thing is clear after our in-depth interview: if it wasn’t academia, she could easily have had a successful career in music or sport. Fun and substance are the two words she uses most – the guiding principles behind all her choices. She’s never been into career planning. Anita Jansen, professor...

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  • Missionary of the open-access message

    She is blunt when it comes to her colleagues’ awareness of the issue of open access: what awareness? According to Lisa Brüggen, professor of Financial Services at the School of Business and Economics (SBE), there is much work to do. “Open access has many advantages and makes academia more honest. It...

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  • May the best (wo)man win

    Should the people who run the fastest at work be the ones to get promoted first? Or should it be those with the most potential? How can organisations persuade talented women to stick around, instead of watching one after the other walk out the door? Isabella Grabner believes that the way performance...

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  • Thinking from a ‘world union’ perspective

    “I’m from Italy and did my bachelor’s in Psychology at another Dutch university, Leiden. After high school I wasn’t sure what to study, so I went to London for two and a half years to improve my English. After that I wanted to study abroad, because I liked the international vibe, the open mind and I...

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  • “I found a home away from home”

    “I was born in South Africa, my mum is from Taiwan and I grew up in Cyprus. With this background, plus the many international internships I did during high school, it was quite natural for me to choose a study programme abroad.”

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  • Positive view of the future prevents school dropout

    Why and how do some female child carers in Lesotho manage to stay in school despite being responsible for running a household? This was the question that researcher Brenda Yamba, originally from Zambia, wanted to answer. She defended her PhD at Maastricht University last June.

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  • “There’s no right or wrong here”

    “I’m originally from Cologne in Germany and I was looking for a study programme abroad, taught in English but close to home. The year before I came to Maastricht, I was working in the tourist sector in Italy. So I moved directly from Italy to Maastricht.”

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  • More fun in the legal classroom

    The work lawyers do, the way they do it – indeed, the entire labour market – is changing radically. This calls for new, ‘soft’ skills, which in turn requires an education revolution. And to this end innovative technology can make an important contribution, according to Bram Akkermans, Catalina...

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  • A life of learning

    Jan van Manen held many positions during his four decades in the police force. Now, as a member of the National Video Reconstruction Team and the Disaster Victim Identification Team, he still works the occasional 60 hour week. But this didn’t stop him from starting, at the ripe age of 55, the Master...

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  • A passport is not a panacea*

    *but it can make a big difference in an immigrant’s life

    It takes five years of uninterrupted stay in the Netherlands for a foreigner to become a Dutch citizen through naturalisation. According to some political parties, this is too short a period to become a full member of society. The government...

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