In the year 2010 over 75,000 international students are registered at a university or higher education in the Netherlands. Tilburg University counts more than 500 international students. Studying abroad can be a real adventure for international students and besides help of the universities they have to arrange a lot of practical issues themselves . Examples of such issues are housing, travelling, financial help and much more. The students are going to live in a new country and new city so they need all help they can get! The results of seven conducted interviews were striking:
Ø “I feel a bit isolated”
Ø “ It is hard to make any friends because everyone has already formed peer groups”
Ø “It would be nice to meet people to share interests with”
Ø “We had no problems with arranging practical issues”
Ø “It is difficult to meet other people”
Ø “It would be helpful to share information with each other”
In order to help these international students, five students of Tilburg University designed an interface called BuddyAbroad. BuddyAbroad is an application for international students who are studying or going to study abroad. By using this application students can exchange experiences, meet other students and share information. In the video below an outline of the application is shown.
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