{"id":133312,"date":"2018-03-24T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T08:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e52.nl\/?p=133312"},"modified":"2018-03-24T09:00:58","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T08:00:58","slug":"marisol-from-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/marisol-from-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Marisol from Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

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People from many different countries live, study and work in Eindhoven. Every week, E52 has a talk\u00a0with an international about what brought them here and what life is like in Eindhoven.<\/p>\n

Name: Marisol Velasco Montanez
\nCountry of origin: Mexico
\nStudy: PhD student Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven Technical University<\/p>\n

When we enter the Innovation Space on the TU\/e campus, it is buzzing with people. Downstairs a group attends a course, upstairs groups of students discus a project and in a separate room people work quietly. Marisol is connected to the Innovation Space for her PhD: \u201cThis is my client company where I do my research. There is always something happening here and people from different departments work together. I meet new people constantly.\u201d Students can take courses here, or organise presentations or build prototypes for the student teams\u2019 projects. \u201cEverybody is very motivated, that gives a lot of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marisol studied in Mexico and worked for a Coca-Cola bottling company, a company that was part of a bigger group. \u201cI got the opportunity to set up an innovation project with the government, academia and the company. In this project, I was pioneering with a team. I got inspired to learn more about innovation and decided I wanted to do an innovation management master. I did research for a year on where I wanted to go. I was looking for a study program where start-ups and big companies work together. That is hard to find. I found two options for the master: here and in Denmark. I chose the TU\/e for the program and the location and I got in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI arrived in winter. I wouldn\u2019t recommend anyone starting a study in the middle of the academic year. It comes with a lot of inconveniences you don\u2019t come across when you start in September. In the beginning, I felt alone. Starting a social life was quite difficult because I didn\u2019t have an introduction week so I didn\u2019t know a lot of people. I tried to connect with Dutch students, but that took a lot of time. Eventually, I could connect with Dutch people who previously studied in other countries, they understood me. I tried to go to some events, but can be challenging by yourself. When I got involved with Innovation Space, my social life exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I wouldn\u2019t recommend anyone starting a study in the middle of the academic year. It comes with all kinds of inconveniences”Marisol Velasco Montanez, PhD student Industrial Engineering<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe most stressful thing that happened to me while I was here, had to do with my tuition. My scholarship covered two years, from \u00a0February\u00a0 2015 until February 2017. But Dutch law says you have to pay a full year of tuition, and if you graduate in February, the university will refund half of the money for that year. You need to know that we as non-EU students pay a lot more than Dutch or EU-students. I didn\u2019t have that kind of money. So my two-year study, would cost a two and a half year tuition. I didn\u00b4t know this in advance. Somebody helped me with figuring everything out. To me, this is a system flaw.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like the situation with my tuition happened more often. Like when I got a letter stating I didn\u2019t earn enough study credits to pursue my study in the second year and that I couldn\u2019t live in the country anymore because of it. At first, I got all stressed out when something like that would happen, but this time I just called the authority that sent the letter and asked questions, because I knew something didn\u2019t add up. It turned out the rule about the credits didn\u2019t apply for me because I started in February. Annoying these things happen, but I learned to be a bit more pragmatic and that people here listen and are very logical. They really make use of \u2018common sense\u2019, so everything can be discussed and arranged. I love that. After all, \u2018common sense\u2019 is not as common as it seems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my spare time, I like to go to Natlab with friends. I also love Down Town Gourmet Market. They have really good food and the atmosphere is very nice. And I also like Strijp S a lot. I\u2019m drawn to it. Many different events are hosted in the area like the super cosy Feel Good Market, but also hard rock shows. When I walked home a few months ago, I saw gothic looking guys. I thought: \u2018What\u2019s happening here?\u2019 Turned out there was a Marilyn Manson concert in the Klokgebouw.\u201d And what are Marisol\u2019s plans for the future? \u201cI don\u2019t know what I want: stay here or not. I really like Eindhoven, and I felt like coming home after visiting Mexico. I am learning Dutch, so if I decide to stay, I know the language a bit. The biggest challenge when it comes to Dutch is the pronunciation of words. But I\u2019m learning, and here at the Innovation Space, I learn also by listening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read all the internationals stories\u00a0here<\/a>.
\nPhotography: Diewke van den Heuvel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People from many different countries live, study and work in Eindhoven. Every week, E52 has a talk\u00a0with an international about what brought them here and what life is like in Eindhoven. Name: Marisol Velasco Montanez Country of origin: Mexico Study: PhD student Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven Technical University When we enter the Innovation Space on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[21199,2725,23141,20608,7077,9615,9868],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-133312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-eindhoven-technical-university","tag-expats","tag-innovation-management","tag-innovation-space","tag-international","tag-internationals-in-eindhoven","tag-living-in-eindhoven"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Sabine te Braake","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/sabine-te-braake\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Eindhoven Technical University<\/a>","expats<\/a>","Innovation Management<\/a>","Innovation Space<\/a>","international<\/a>","Internationals in Eindhoven<\/a>","living in Eindhoven<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Eindhoven Technical University<\/span>","expats<\/span>","Innovation Management<\/span>","Innovation Space<\/span>","international<\/span>","Internationals in Eindhoven<\/span>","living in Eindhoven<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 8 years ago","modified":"Updated 8 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on March 24, 2018","modified":"Updated on March 24, 2018"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on March 24, 2018 9:00 am","modified":"Updated on March 24, 2018 9:00 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=133312"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=133312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}