College Is A Scam - Honest Review Of The Hague University of Applied Sciences

The Hague University of Applied Sciences, also known as de Haagse Hogeschool, is the primary institution of higher learning in the city of the Hague, in the Netherlands. Also, it is a good representation of what is wrong with higher education in today's society.

This is a honest review coming from personal experience. I was customer for this institution and I am merely reviewing the services I received during my academic years. So this is just my opinion, however, I do hope you can find some value in what I have to say.

If you read articles such as; The College Scam, written by reason.com, you can see a quite thorough explanation of what is wrong with American colleges; however, hardly a word is mentioned about their European counterparts. Though, in Europe higher education is far cheaper than in the States; the system is still riddle with mediocrity and in no way prepares for entering the labor market.

First of all, when looking at reviews online about this University you will find that there are a lot of positive reviews, and that many people "had fun" and there was big "international community". However, it is my opinion that these reviews are either fake or made by imbeciles who just came to the Hague to party instead of study. Interestingly enough, the couple of bad reviews you can find on the internet are quite detailed in regards to the programs and administration. Thus, making me really question the legitimacy of any positive review you can find, as the positive reviews just talk about how nice the Hague is, and about how much fun you will have when you move here.

For me, the Hague University was at best mediocre, and at worst, a scam institution wasting taxpayer money. I was studying social sciences and though I would really love to mention names of teachers and staff that I have encountered, I will not, as it might ruin their careers and that is not something I am interested in doing. What I do want is for prospective students to know the truth, and to choose a different institution of learning.

For my first two years I was introduced to an enormous amount of bullocks, which the teachers referred to as "theory". It was basically leftist propaganda about how the world works mixed with management/administration and accounting. To be fair, the management and the accounting was descent; however, it could still be greatly improved. Moreover, the social aspect was very ideological and never presented different view points, much less an opposing one. Lastly, the very worst of the first two years was that I was taught things that did not help me to get a job. All that theory was basically useless, because no employer ever since has required me to know any of that jargon. I guess the only exception is accounting, but other than that, even the management theory is pretty useless in the real world.

For example, we had a course called "Intercultural Communication", which, involved writing a story about people from different cultures. Not only was the assignment ludicrous, but also the teacher was more interested in teaching ethics than intercultural communication, which was reflected in the grading. Later we found out that the teacher specializes in ethics, no wonder we had such a course. But the worst course of all, was writing for a Wiki website that nobody would ever use or see. The wiki course lasted for two entire semesters and it was pretty useless. We could have just written stuff for the real Wikipedia, instead we were writing for something that isn't even online, and it was with the purpose of introducing us to technology. I mean how archaic, and besides, it does not take two entire semesters to learn how to edit a wiki page.

The last two years of my program were more practical and I was asked to do an internship for a period of six months. When looking for the internship I realized how serious my employment problem was, and how useless all I have learned had been. Mind you, I applied for internships related to my field of study, so it should have been somewhat easy, but no, it was very difficult and I had to use my own network in order to find an internship. Of course, the school did not provide any help, and the teacher supervising us was just there to justify his salary. He literally did nothing to helped us, even though he was responsible for the internship course. Moreover, he even failed to showed up to important meetings with students and employers, as he forgot he had made the appointments, what a rude person! The worst part is that if you do that to him he will be very offended and probably downgrade you. Also, we had a course specifically designed to help us find internship placement; the course consisted of basically writing a CV, cover letter, and making an interview with an employer. Naturally, the interview was fictional, so you do not actually have to interview an employer. It would be nice if that was part of the requirement.  This course lasted for an entire semester, what a waste!

I also encountered teachers who were somewhat racists and outright rude. In my case, I had a teacher who told me I would never be able to find employment in a certain company I wanted to apply to. He said that to me, right after I mentioned I would love to work for them. Also, before that incident, I never really had a problem with that teacher, so I was surprised when he said that. Later on, I found out that he was saying similar things to other students, and he was actually rather infamous for being a dick. This trend escalated as my time passed in this institution.

The other big problem with this University is its administration. The school has a very bad reputation with regards to their inner management. In my case, I had to chase for months teachers and administrators in order to obtain my credits. The problem arose from the fact that some of the subjects I took were from a different faculty, and even though I had an official approval from the examination board, my credits were never awarded. Of course, I complained, and after a long chase and plenty of ass-kissing I got the credits that were rightfully mine to begin with. Interestingly enough, when I mentioned this problem to my classmates they told me they also had similar issues. So it became apparent that the school administration was just extremely incompetent.

Overall, the Hague University fails miserably at helping students prepare for the labor market. Even though they assure you of the opposite. This trend is common across all social sciences and in most the western world. So the sooner people get away from them the better. Also, if you really want to go to University, then I highly recommend a different institution. Otherwise, you will surely regret your decision. Consider yourselves warned, and be sure to stay out of this school.