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| Living her dreams: Head of the International Department at the Unversity (Foto: Arjan Reef) |
Paardenkooper's life has truly been that of a global citizen. She spent part of her childhood in Spain and studied there for one year on a scholarship from the Spanish Government. She worked as a teaching assistant at the University in Amsterdam before marrying a French man and setting off for a year-long trip to Asia. She finally settled in Nice, where initially she worked in the Nice Chamber of Commerce and Industry, teaching English to French businessmen. But her first linguistic love was Spanish, and she spent ten years of her life teaching Spanish language to students at the International University of Monaco. Thanks to all this exposure, she can now speak fluently Dutch, English, Spanish, French and German.
What then made her leave teaching to become the Head of the International Office at UT? She came in contact with the international community during her days at the University of Monaco, where 80% of the students had an international background. Paardenkooper soon began to realize that these students were not getting the proper attention, or the exposure they needed to study abroad.
In September 2002, the International Office of the University of Monaco (IUM) was born under her leadership. However, when some years later she approached the management to ask for additional funding to expand the office, the request was flatly declined. That is when she decided to use her experience to apply for the position of the Head of the International Office at the University of Twente. The rest, as they say, is history. Monaco's loss was Twente's gain.
After 17 years of staying away from her homeland, Karin is back in The Netherlands. And what does it feel like to be finally home? Karin wisely says `After having lived all over the world, I appreciate my own society even more. And I can share my cultural knowledge and international experiences with others.' It is this international exposure that Karin wants the students at the university to experience.
The International Office together with the Platform Internationalization Twente Students (PITS) is planning to organize a two-day fair for UT students in the month of June. The idea of the fair is to help students get a feel of the cultural and academic environments in different countries through interaction with students from countries around the world and ECIU partner universities. The aim is to encourage UT students to go abroad for their internships or to study through exchange programs. She stresses that the International Office has funds to support both bachelor's and master's students— irrespective of their grades— to participate in an internship or a study period for a minimum of three months to a maximum of one year in a foreign country of their choice.
`Our office strives to provide help in all non-academic matters of concern to the international student community. If a student is not familiar with the medical system or needs help filing applications for the residence permit, the International Office provides them with all the necessary guidance. With this aim in mind, the website of the International Office has been organized (http://intoffice.utwente.nl), such that `students can get all the required information at the click of a mouse.' says Paardenkooper. All this, she hopes, will help increase the number of international degree-seekers from the current 9.8% to about 15 % over the course of the next five years.
When asked what the short-term goal of the International Office for 2008 is, Paardenkooper says, `to increase the number of international degree-seekers in the UT and to have more UT students going to study abroad. In short, to make the UT even more international.' The combination of her dedication, along with the backing of the University Board and the International Office team, can well translate this goal into a future reality.
