Student Profile
Student profile based on the information for 2004-05 to 2010-11. By Richard T. Griffiths (updated September 2010).
This page gives an idea of the profile of the Masters EUS students for the six years 2004-05 to 2010-11. Where I can, I will comment on the results using my own experience in similar masters degrees elsewhere.
Number
The number of students starting the degree has been rising every year. In 2008-09 and 2009-10 the number hovered just above 40 but this year it has jumped to 56.
Age
This year the average age of students drifted upwards slightly from previous years. Nevertheless, the youngest students this year are 21 at the start of the course and slightly under half of the students are 24 or younger. This does not deviate much from similar Masters courses elsewhere.
Gender
In 2004-05, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2009-10 and again in 2010-11, the sex ratio is more or less 50:50. This is rather surprising, since most similar masters in which I have taught have been predominantly female. However, in 2005-06 the pendulum overshot in the other way with an 85:15 female: male ratio and again 2008-09 with a 73:27 ratio. This still reflects the swings that one gets with small samples, and eventually I expect that ratio to settle around 60:40.
Nationality
The pattern of students over time has become more diverse, representing in 2010-11 no less than twenty-one different nationalities, making the student body a truly international one. Recently the Dutch have constituted the largest single body, but have made up about a third of the student numbers (this year just 32%). The pattern of the student body is always shifting. This year we have representatives for the first time from the former Soviet Republics (helped by EU scholarship programme for Neighbourhood countries) but, for some inexplicable reason, we have lost our solid presence from the Baltic states.
Applications
For the record, the pattern of applications is far more divers, with applications for 2010-11 received from no less that thirty-six different countries. Not all those applying actually arrive:
· Students fail to secure the necessary funding
· Relational/Family ties keep them at home
· Students go fishing for grants and offers (and those already with a Masters also try for PhD grant)
· And we actually turn some down!
On this last point, our selection policy does not aim to turn Leiden into an Oxford/Cambridge on the Rhine. We are prepared to accept any student who is interested in the study and capable of fulfilling its requirements. We quite often take good students who have no disciplinary affiliation with the degree in their Bachelor phase but who are highly motivated, with excellent results. The policy is aimed at restricting the ‘tail’- students who will have difficulties in completing the study and thereby overloading the staff and holding back the rest of the students in class and seminars.
Qualifications
The first year of the degree saw a relatively high percentage of students who had already obtained a masters degree but this has steadily declined. The exact percentage of students starting the degree with a Masters in the last five years are shown below. The reason for the decline lies in the impact of the ‘ Bologna system’ on European higher education. Previously, in some countries, there was no cut-off point before the MA-equivalent, so students came to a ‘stand-alone’ Masters as ours, automatically with an MA title. Now that the BA/MA system has been introduced, this number is steadily falling. This trend is likely to continue since the Dutch Ministry of Education (which affects a sizeable part of our intake) has ceased funding second MA-degrees – a crying shame, in my opinion.
Overall slightly over 40 per cent of students have come to the Masters program came with a background in political science and/or international relations. With larger numbers of students, the pattern has become more varied, though foreign language graduates, that feature largely in other programs with which I am familiar, have only just started finding their way to our program. This year, as the pattern of experience over previous years became more apparent, we began to relax our disciplinary requirements further. The pattern for the last five years is given below:
Many students are worried that they lack certain disciplines (in particular political science and IR). It is true that they find more difficulty in adapting to, say, the Institutions course. On the other hand, political scientists will have to cope with Law and Economics, with which they are unfamiliar. What I want to say is that it all cancels itself out. A year ago we conducted an analysis of students prior backgrounds and their results. We found some correlation with the first semester grades, but that was on geography (where you did the first degree) and not on discipline (what you studied). However, by the time we looked at the second semester grades and at the thesis, there was no observable relationship to either geography or discipline. If you are still worried, look at the list of past students – at the best results and the best essays – and you will see several that have an unconventional prior degree qualification.
Language Ability
In 2010-11 only ten per cent of the students had English as their mother tongue. Thus already, the overwhelming majority of students have a command of two languages (their native language and English). By ‘command of a second foreign language’ we mean the ability to read a scholarly article in that language! This is very impressive, and very useful for a degree of this kind. French and German are the most common of the second foreign languages, followed by Italian and Spanish, Russian and Dutch.