Sustainability and Practical Ethics

‘I had to get out of my comfort zone. By doing that, I learned a lot in contact with people who are different from me. In the news I hear about refugees and everyone has an opinion. Now I could get in contact with them and that makes it more personal.’

‘If I think about sustainable development, I feed motivated, but also overwhelmed. It was good to be able to do something practical to make a small contribution towards a more sustainable and inclusive world.’

‘The field trips and business visits allowed us to discover more than our field of study. I learned more about the country, culture and saw differences and similarities between my country and The Netherlands

• Understanding of Sustainability Concepts: Gain a deep understanding of sustainability principles and how they apply to various professional and societal contexts.
• Problem-Solving in Complex Environments: Learn to identify, analyze, and propose solutions to complex problems, especially those related to sustainability and ethics.
• Global and Cultural Awareness: Enhance awareness of global challenges such as inequality, corruption, mass migration, women's rights, and aging populations, and understand their implications in different cultural contexts.
• Critical Thinking and Reflection: Foster critical thinking skills and the ability to reflect on one’s own values, decisions, and their impact in professional and societal contexts.
• Practical Application of Theory: Ability to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios, demonstrating how sustainability and ethics can be practically implemented in professional settings.

• Foundations for sustainable development: You follow classes, guest lectures, interprofessional discussions and field trips to broaden your view on sustainable development. You make the connection to your personal and professional life.
• Healthy communities: You work as a group to organize an activity to promote healthy or sustainable behaviour for a vulnerable community. You do this in close collaboration with this community to get to know their struggles, needs and strengths. In this way, you can organize an activity that will help to leave no one behind!
• Cultural Encounters: Within this program you work in an intercultural project group, you describe and interpret the cultural encounters within this team using relevant theories and frameworks, you reflect personally and professionally on these intercultural experiences, and you draw lessons with regards to your intercultural sensitivity. You use basic phrases and expressions in Dutch (for Dutch students: a foreign language) at A1 level, and you explain the connectedness between Dutch culture and its roots (for Dutch students: a foreign culture) based on several examples.