The European Union Policy minor

Intro
When we had to choose our minor over half a year ago, I really in doubt since most minors seemed, at least, interesting. I ended up choosing European Union Policy, since I believe it is of value to have an in depth view of how the European Union works.
Well as I just said, I chose the EUP minor in order to gain more insight on how the European Union was created and how it currently works. To be completely honest, the minor was not completely as I expected it to be. I expected the minor to have focused more on the economic aspects of the European Union. Nevertheless the minor focused more on the organizational aspects of all EU institutions in combination to the laws regulation all institutions as well as the entire European Union.
Even though the minor did not entirely turn out as I expected it would, I had a great semester in which I gained lots of new knowledge and skills.

Why you might like the minor as well;
One of the "pro's" of this minor is that the main lecturers, Mr Frencken and Mr v. Manen and Mrs Vermeijs do a very good job. They will draw your attention and provide you with a lot of information whilst keeping the lectures interesting and lively. In addition to the lectures and normal training session everyone is used to, we now had tutor group sessions. During these tutor group sessions we discussed small cases regarding specific topics concerning European Union decisions etc.

Of course there were projects as well and slightly more than we were normally used to. We had a total of 6 projects throughout the entire semester. The groups with whom you cooperate are changed each project, so you’ll really get to know your fellow students.

The course itself ends with an individual project; the paper. Everyone had to write a paper consisting of approximately 3000 to 3500 words about either an economic or legislative aspect of the European Union.
In addition to the high quality of the lectures, choosing EUP will also ensure you of having a great excursion.

This excursion will take you to the main European Union institutions in the BeNeLux. Not only is it nice to see these places, you also receive lectures from EU staff, which sometimes provide a different point of view on the subjects discussed during class. Nevertheless you really need to love busses in order to maintain some sanity after travelling hundreds, if not thousand, kilometers or more in a few days.




In addition to this international trip, we also had an excursion on which we went to the ASSET conference.

Here we were able to follow lectures by well-known people from the government, research institutes, entrepreneurs etc.

Overall I really liked the EUP minor, and I would without any doubt choose this program again if I had to re-do this semester.