European Studies

Startpagina
Nederland
The Hague
European Studies

Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts preparing young Europeans to advise and assist organisations, institutions and businesses.

European Studies (formerly known as HEBO) began in 1990 as a programme for young europeans interested in an international and multi-lingual career. The programme has evolved over its quarter century, but its mission remains the same. Year in and year out, we help young people develop the knowledge and skills they need to start careers in management, marketing, communications/public relations and/o

r policy advice. Unlike a lot of study programmes, European Studies does not prepare students for one specific career, and with good reason. Today's professionals aren't going to have just one career. Globalisation, automation and computerisation are changing the labour market's needs and that means that professionals need to be able to take on different jobs to succeed and survive. Now, more than ever, you can find truth in an old saying: "It's not the strongest who survive, or even the smartest, but the ones most adaptable to change." This is what ES is all about: learning to adapt to change by developing management, marketing and public policy knowledge - as well as cultural understanding - that never goes out of style, together with professional research and communications skills that will keep you on the cutting edge. That's why our motto is "Employability through Adaptability."

29/05/2026

There’s a great Dutch expression, invented by a footballer, that “every con has its pro.” This is something we think about when explaining the career options for European Studies. Unlike other programmes, you can’t picture a job when you hear “European Studies,” and some folks find that frustrating, but, this perceived problem is actually a huge advantage for our programme.

The truth is, you can’t picture a job right away because European Studies doesn’t prepare you for a single, specific type of career. We’re all about creating job options for students by giving them knowledge and skills that they can apply in the worlds of politics and business - or the grey areas in between, and our students go on to a wide variety of amazing careers. This is the best thing about our programme, but it also requires efforts from students and staff to identify and explore all of those options.

To that end, our programme hosted a really cool event the other day, in which second-year students researched different career paths and presented them to each other at an open market. Students learned about careers giving policy advice in government institutions, helping in marketing and fundraising for NGOs and using business ideas to improve sustainability efforts in public transport, among other things.

The options - and the enthusiasm our students showed about them - are seemingly limitless and we’re so excited to see which paths this group of students ultimately chooses. Stay tuned to find out about that.

If you want to know more about what types of careers you can have with a Bachelor of Arts of European Studies - or if you want to know what our European Professionals have to offer your organisation, check out the links in our bio or get in touch.

27/05/2026

European Studies is proud to offer students a wide variety of career options, but because our programme combines politics with business, a lot of our students are specifically interested in diplomacy, where these topics come together every day. That’s why we were very excited when the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted us recently about opportunities to speak with students, enabling us to set up a terrific little event for this week.

Despite tropical temperatures, dozens of students stayed late on Tuesday to meet key professionals from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to learn about the complexities and dilemmas of doing business and diplomacy all over the world.

We were lucky enough to have Michiel Sweers, Director-General for International Economic Affairs, speak about how he and the 150 people in his team work deal with issues related to international trade, including sticky situations where the needs of Dutch businesses are affected by geopolitical events. Then, diplomat Pieter van Vliet spoke about his experiences at embassies all over the world, including his time at the Dutch embassy in Ukraine, where he was working when the current war broke out.

Both speakers took the time to answer tons of questions from ES students and both gave them a strong sense of how international relations actually work in practice, along with some great career advice - in case you’re wondering, no you do not necessarily need to be good at math to work in Economic Affairs - and they also helped students understand the importance of what they do.

Pieter van Vliet noted that, in diplomacy, the results of your hard work are not always immediately visible to the outside world, because ”our biggest successes are the wars that never started,” But both of our esteemed guests gave students as sense of how much that work matters, and we suspect that they encouraged a lot of students to follow in their footsteps.

We’d like to thank the Ministry and its staff for a great afternoon and for making so much time for our students.

22/05/2026

It seems obvious that European Studies students learn a lot about the European Union, but they actually go a lot further than that. Some of them help others learn this too.

In recent days, European Studies students, under the leadership of lecturer Margriet Krijtenburg, participated in another edition of our Schuman for Kids project, in which our students, in collaboration with students form the Alliance Française, visit the European School in The Hague to teach elementary school children about the EU and it’s history. According to Margriet, they told the story of European founding father Robert Schuman and of “how the European project came into being.”

The event was, as always, “a great success for the students, the kids and the teachers at the European school,” according to Margriet, and we’re glad that our colleague had another successful event, because she will soon be retiring from European Studies and we’re going to miss her. Luckily, she’s given us a lot to be optimistic about, because she has done such a good job reminding us all that there is “as source of hope for the present and the future.”

If you want to know more about the founding of the EU and how it affects business and politics today, or if you want to know how this knowledge could be an asset to your job or organisation, check the links in our bio or get in touch with us.

20/05/2026

For a lot of European Studies students, the two biggest moments in the programme are the study abroad experience and the internship that all students have to do in order to graduate. For one of our students, these two separate activities actually came together recently in a way that surprised us.

Mike Unguyran is a fourth-year student and he’s currently working as a policy intern at the Netherlands House for Education and Research (Neth-ER), where he was recently asked to speak at an event on the future of the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, in front of the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the EU and the Dutch Ministry of Education.

“For my pitch, I shared my personal experience of my Erasmus+ exchange in Sheffield, the United Kingdom, and how it contributed to both my personal and professional development,” he says. “What made this moment meaningful, was being able to reflect on what Erasmus+ truly means to me, and why it plays such an important role in preparing young people for their future careers while also contributing to their personal growth.”

Mike notes that “speaking in front of a large audience felt similar to going on exchange: challenging at first, but in the end very rewarding,” and adds that he enjoyed the experience.

We’re very proud of Mike and proud that our exchange programme helped him grow as a person. We’re also thrilled to see him reflect on this while also doing a very cool internship and excited to see what happens next after he graduates this July.

There are many, many options for exchange destinations and for internships. To learn more, check out the links in our bio.

18/05/2026

European Studies has a great teaching team, but we’re also proud of the fact that, whenever possible, we organise guest lectures with people from the fields of business, politics, intercultural communication, international relations and diplomacy, to give our students a first-hand look at the concepts they’re studying and the careers they’re preparing for.

Contact with he field is important to us, and that’s why we’re thrilled that we were able to Have Emil de Bont, Dutch ambassador to Iran, stop by to speak with first-year students about what it takes to be a diplomat today, while also exploring the ongoing conflict that has the world - including us - paying attention.

His advice to students who want to work in diplomacy: be generous and read a lot. These are good tips and we know our students took them to heart, because Lecturer Daria Brygiert, who helped run the event tells us for two hours, the ambassador had “full attention, no distractions.”

This was actually the ambassador’s second recent visit. Mr De Bont came to The Hague University of Applied Sciences earlier this semester to speak at an Iran-themed event that co-organised by European Studies student Viktoriia Kryndach, who is currently dealing with war and other global events as part of her internship at The Hague Institute for Geopolitics.

It’s a special thing to be able to bring the professionals who understand the headlines into the classroom and we’re certain it has given our students new perspectives that will make them better professionals and maybe equip them to deal with global conflicts in the future.

14/05/2026

You run into European Studies students - and teachers - all over the place. Recently our own Emma Prins popped up on a radio show on the Dutch news station BNR to discuss the EU’s plans to invite influencers to Brussels. Emma is an influencer in her own right. Her TikTok and Instagram channels () offer explanations of how the EU works and, like our programme, these are NOT EU propaganda but interesting explainers.

It’s important that people and organisations understand the EU and knowledge of how its institutions, laws and procedures work can open a lot of doors for young professionals in search of career options. To find out how you could put this knowledge to work, check out the links in our bio or contact us, and in the meantime, check out what Emma has to say about EU influencers.

12/05/2026

From May until July, things get crazy at European Studies. There is a lot going on and students and staff have a lot to do before the end of the year. This is certainly true for students who are hoping to graduate because they’re all working on their very last assignments now.

This includes over thirty students who will finish their studies with EuroVisions, a graduation-level course in which they research complex problems and then use cinematic storytelling to promote solutions. It’s a challenge meant to test their research skills while also sharpening their creativity and we love it.

To get this batch of students ready, today we were thrilled to have of stop by to coach our students on Storytelling. Kevin is a documentary filmmaker who teaches courses on documentary production and gave tips on how to find a good story and how to figure out how to structure it. He was joined by two European Studies students who took one of Kevin’s courses and they got to share a short film they’re working on about an interesting social enterprise that’s using new technology to make work more inclusive for hard of hearing people. It was great work and a great start to our EuroVisions course. In the coming weeks we will see how our students put Kevin’s advice into practice and we’re looking forward to it.

Thanks again Kevin!

To learn more about EuroVisions, check out links or get in touch.

09/05/2026

We’re supposed to have the day off at European Studies but since it’s Europe Day today, some colleagues and students gave up some of their time to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, a canon event in the origin story of the European Union.

Together with our friend, Professor of Practice Mendeltje van Keulen of the hub, ES student Giulia di Leo and a student from our university’s Public Management programme were invited to hoist an EU flag to mark the occasion. ES lecturer and internship coordinator Bart Kuijpers was also downtown to check out the opening of The Europe Experience, a new interactive education center.

Whatever your feelings are about the EU, it plays a huge role on this continent and learning how to interact with it is a big part of our programme, so we’re proud to commemorate its beginning.

Would you like to know more about how our programme turns EU knowledge into countless job options? Check the links in our bio or get in touch with us.

08/05/2026

What kind of career does European Studies prepare you for?

Because our programme is interdisciplinary and mixes politics with business, there are a lot of options, all over the world (sometimes it will surprise you how far you can go). To give you an idea of what those options are, we like to share stories of student internships. This week, we check on Zofia, who just finished an internship in Chile.

Many of our students what to work in politics, in our out of Europe and Zofia ended up working for a semester at the Chilean Senate, where “For 5 months I was responsible for analyzing EU laws and directives and how they can impact Chilean legislation. I have learned a lot about the functioning of the legislative system in Chile, an important Latin American partner, which is such an enriching experience for my future career bridging Europe and Latin America. During my time in the Senate, I took a closer look especially at the law on monuments (Law 17.288), which needs substantial reforms and a law project on the modification of Law 20.606 regarding the labeling of ultra-processed products. Additionally, I initiated and helped organize events and supported social media creation. Additionally, as a European Studies student engaging with the Delegación de la Unión Europea en Chile was particularly rewarding, given the timing of the EU–Chile agreement, which added a broader context to my work and insights.”

This a great example of how the expertise of the European professional is applicable in so many different types of jobs, all over the world. Zofia, who is currently doing a research project connected with her work, says she’s “grateful for everyone I met during this experience” and note that it helped her gain valuable insight.

Nice job Zofia! Good luck on that research paper and we’ll see you at graduation.

Want to know more about ES internships - or about what a European Studies intern could do for you and your organisation, check the links in our bio or get in touch.

06/05/2026

One of the main ‘selling points’ of the European Studies programme is the options it offers for studying abroad. All ES students have the chance to go on exchange and it’s the high point of the programme for many.

What’s it like and where can you go? These are common questions and we like to answer them by getting students to share their experiences at the over 100 possible destinations. This week, we take a trip to Japan. Check out what Ryan experienced there and if you want to know more, hit the links in our bio.

Adres

Johanna Westerdijkplein 75
The Hague
2521EN

Website

https://linktr.ee/europeanstudiesthuas

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