February: I*ESN Tilburg

In the southern province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands we find the city Tilburg. This is where University of Tilburg and this month’s Section in the Spotlight I*ESN TILBURG is located!

This section has been active since 1991 which means that the section last year celebrated 20 years as an ESN Section. Last year the section also merged with the organization ICONN, which focused on degree seeking students. The merge led to the new organization named I*ESN Tilburg, which focuses on both exchange students and degree seeking students. The I*ESN Tilburg team consists of 6 board members who work fulltime for the organization on a voluntary basis, for one academic year. The board contains a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, activities coordinator and a building manager. As support the board has 40 mentors who help the exchange students and about 35 buddies who support the degree seeking students. I*ESN Tilburg also got 12 committees which students can join to engage in the planning of activities, parties and projects.

Something very exciting and unique for the section is that they in October 2011 got their own ESN bar, which serves as International Meeting Point for students of Tilburg. The bar is named Carpe Diem and holds room for about 200-250 people. This is the place where most of the sections activities and parties take place. The section manages everything at the bar, which is a lot of work, but also greatly fun.

During your time as an international student in Tilburg,  I*ESN Tilburg offers you different activities such as city tours, pub crawls, cultural dinners, theme parties, movie and poker nights, band nights, cultural activities and much more! The section focuses on Social Erasmus with their Social Projects Committee that consists of seven international students. The team has already executed several social projects.

Both international and local students can join the committees or be a mentor/buddy, all after a selection procedure and personal interviews. The section works closely together with the University and other student organizations to organize events where local and international students can get together. To get a better team spirit the section organizes teambuilding activities, events for buddies and events for active members such as a newbie camp.

In order to be a member of I*ESN Tilburg the International students pay 30 euro a year. During the first 6 months the section managed to get 450 members, of which 75% were international students. The section also gets economic funding from partners and advertisement.

So make sure you do not miss the opportunity to visit Carpe Diem if you’re passing by Tilburg one day!

If you want to know more about I*ESN Tilburg check out their homepage. And their video.

Written by: Caroline Thurmann Morand