Become a mentor!

The UU Welcome Week is the introductory week for international students who are about to start their studies at UU. During the week, they get to know the city, the university and (most importantly) each other.

The week is right before classes start, because most international students can only arrive in the Netherlands a few days before their studies start.

The most important task as a mentor is to be a friendly face for the students and the first person they can turn to with all their questions. Even if you do not know all the answers, it helps a lot if someone can Google with you! This is especially so when you have just arrived in a new country and you are overwhelmed by everything you need to arrange.

Mentors are mostly needed on 30 August and 31 August. On 30 August, everyone visits the opening show in Tivoli followed by a city tour. As a mentor, you lead your group during the city tour. We will provide you with a tour route (so you don’t have to know every corner of the city), but as a mentor you are also free to make the route your own!

On 31 August, students will take part in the Get Settled lab, where they go through a checklist of practical matters that they need to arrange upon arriving. As a mentor, you help students figure everything out. You will be provided with a list of frequently asked questions and there will also be help desks on location that you can refer students to.

You can join the workshops with your mentor group on 1 September and 2 September, although this is not mandatory (just fun!). Make sure to reserve the evening of 2 September in your agenda, because that is the day of the spectacular dinner in the Werkspoorkathedraal with all 2000 participants!

Our goal is to have groups of max. 20 students with two mentors. The final number depends on the number of mentors we find.

We aim to make the groups as diverse as possible: all students will come from different study backgrounds and we aim to mix up different nationalities.

There are many perks! 

• Meet new people from all over the world 
• Join a week of fun activities
• Gain valuable mentoring and leadership experience (which you can definitely put on your cv!) 
• And of course... the satisfaction of helping people find their way!

In short: the only requirement is that you are available during the week! You do not need to have any previous experience or be the most social person we’ve ever met. There will be a training course focused on all the practical details of the week to prepare you.

The students who arrive are all different, and so are our mentors! The most important thing is that you can be a friendly face and that you are willing to help students with their questions. In most cases, a response like ‘that is a good question, let’s Google it together!’ is all a new student needs to feel welcome and reassured.

Sign-up will open in December, so keep an eye on this page & the Warm Welcome Instagram for updates!