Academic institutes, Expatriate community, Expats' corner, Feature articles, posted October 23rd, 2007

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What is driving talented minds towards scientific life in the south of the Netherlands?

An ex-lover once asked me why on earth I wanted to become a researcher. He scolded me for aspiring for a life in academia. According to him all academics are stuck spinning their wheels, writing papers that are only being read by fellow academics. Worse still, he believed none of this knowledge ever made it back into the real world.

Ulterior motives aside, his claim covers little ground. Surely advances in science continue to influence societies on a daily basis, in countless ways, both good and bad.

Nonetheless it touches upon an interesting question. What gears people towards a life in science?

At the time of this conversation, I was travelling around the world working as professional model. Yet, I was wholeheartedly committed to returning to my home country for further education.

Moreover, I was fully convinced that the city of Maastricht was the one and only place to be. I’ve often wondered where this unwavering determination came from. What is it about Maastricht, as opposed to other places, that made me so adamant about living and studying here? In order to discover this city’s mysterious attraction, I decided to ask expats in academia about their motives for electing Maastricht as well. Maybe fellow outsiders could help better explain why today I find myself roped into research and living in Maastricht. So after randomly seeking out foreign looking names on the websites of various faculties, I met up with a number of expats employed by the University of Maastricht. The first one of whom was Marco Zinzani.

An Italian academic in Maastricht
I meet Marco Zinzani on a radiant autumn Sunday at Coffeelovers near the ‘Hoge Brug’. He strikes me as a handsome young man, well groomed and nicely dressed, as one might expect from a 25-year-old Italian man. Unfortunately the terrace is full. Apparently more people have decided that it was one of the last opportunities to bask in the sun before the long Dutch winter. We make our way inside and find a table in a corner.

Marco introduces himself while the aroma of fresh coffee readily reaches our table. Born in a village in the north of Italy, he moved to Rome aged 19 to pursue his studies. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Law at ‘Tor Vergata’, the second largest university of Rome, before moving to Maastricht last year. Here he completed a more specialised Masters program; the ‘Magister Iuris Communis’-program, with a special focus on European Economic and Social Regulation.

Why Maastricht?
Marco had learned about Maastricht University (UM) through a friend and when he was granted a prestigious scholarship from the Rotary Foundation, he ranked it third on his list of five preferences. The foundation selected it and the rest is history.

Marco is currently working on a four-year contract as a junior researcher at the department of International and European law of the UM’s Law Faculty. He admits to becoming an academic more or less by chance: “When I came here last year my idea was to do the Masters program and then to go back to Italy and continue working as a legal trainee and then as a lawyer”. But after winning a competition within the faculty he discovered “how good a PhD position in the Netherlands actually was” and changed his mind. As he puts it: “It was a golden opportunity”.

After spending five years in Rome, Marco was feeling fed up with life in a big city. Maastricht provided him with the perfect opportunity to escape. In a way Maastricht resembles his hometown, he explains, except that his hometown doesn’t have a university. “A good quality of life plus a university: the perfect combination of things for me,” Marco sums up.

After apologetically stating that he doesn’t want to say bad things about his country, Marco confesses that his passion for research pretty much disappeared in Italy. “They don’t have money first of all, and the relationship between students and professors is completely different.”

Marco likes the more personal contact with professors in Maastricht as opposed to the distance he felt in Rome, where according to him, most professors see their job at the university as secondary to a more important position elsewhere.

What strikes me about Marco during our conversation is his general positive attitude about living in Maastricht. When probed about the more negative side he offers me a contemplative face and after some thought finally points to the language barrier as a possible drawback. Despite being satisfied with the overall level of English he assumes that “if I could speak Dutch my social life could be better.” “So now I’m studying Dutch”, he shrugs.

With regard to his social life back in Italy Marco doesn’t see many problems. His family, friends and girlfriend are still there, but he stays in touch and even goes as far as claiming that he is living an additional life there. “I think it’s not difficult nowadays to do that because through Skype and all these technologies it’s very easy to keep in touch. It takes me only two hours to go back home by plane, and I do it every three weeks”.

In Maastricht, Marco’s social life consists primarily of international contacts: “I don’t know why, probably it’s easier,” he admits. He believes the very international environment to be a main contributor. He further describes Maastricht as a city well equipped for students, offering them ample resources to go out and do whatever activity they please.

Opportunities and challenges
Despite the fact that in his view Maastricht University is only well known among people in more specialised domains, Marco believes “that the reputation of this university is going to increase”. In his opinion, Maastricht offers the same quality of education as the US or UK, but for less money, and without having to leave Europe. “These are big advantages”, he says.

Although Marco isn’t planning on staying in the Netherlands for his entire life, nothing is certain because “I never expected to be here for longer than one year in the first place!” Understandably, Marco misses the Italian weather and a lot of other things about his country. But for the time being “I’m taking advantage of all the good opportunities the Netherlands has to offer me, and in return I try to do my best for the University of Maastricht,” he says.

When I question him about life in academia he gives me an extensive answer in which I can’t help noticing the recurrence of the word ‘challenging’. “What I especially like in the Netherlands is the combination of research and teaching. I find teaching particularly challenging”.

Marco tutors a number of groups in which 60 percent of the students have an international background: “Some of them come from countries such as Turkey and China and it can be really complicated to make them participate.” According to Marco these interactions “raise issues I didn’t consider before, they help me investigate more of my subject”. Besides teaching, Marco likes academia for its open and international character: “It makes you feel the need to do your best. I don’t think I will regret having chosen this life”.

Marco agrees with the statement that academics are effectively stuck spinning their wheels. It was one of his fears when drafting his own research proposal. Raising both hands, he exclaims: “Oh my god, I don’t want to spend four years just working on theories and writing something that nobody is going to read!”

As a result he decided to aim his research at companies and the regulation of markets: “I tried to focus on what somebody outside of academia would like to read”. And when his contract at the Faculty of Law is over, Marco says he would like “to have two tracks, academia and working in a firm”.

However, despite academia’s tendency of being a closed world, Marco believes that certain applications for the outside world can only come from research done from within academia, “because, unlike within a law firm, in an academic environment you have the privilege of both time and resources. You are positioned inside a network of people who can help you with their experiences”.

The overall impression I got from Marco was that of a bright young man contented with his life in Maastricht and capable of balancing both the social and cultural aspects of his move to the Netherlands. As for the ‘why’ of academia, it admittedly remains an issue in its own right entirely. Even if academics are effectively stuck spinning their wheels, at least Marco didn’t seem to be greatly bothered by it. But my search for answers continues…

By Rosanne Rademaker

Born in The Hague, Rosanne Rademaker is currently living and studying in Maastricht for a research master in Neuro Psychology. Rosanne also writes (in Dutch) for youth magazine Code Maastricht.

Related article:

• Academia in Maastricht (part 2): the life and times of a Polish-American rebel
• Academia in Maastricht (part 3): Lost in translation
• Academia in Maastricht (part 4): Are academics stuck spinning their wheels? A final verdict

 

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