With this Master in Tourism Destination Management, many incredible things have come to my own!

Thanh in Breda

This is the first time for me coming and getting to stay in Europe as a Master student, although it ‘s just one year and a few months.

I had to take a 23-hour flight from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur and then from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam, like every student coming to study in Breda, I needed to catch a train with frustrated feeling from a long-lasting flight and 3 very-huge baggages. My first impression on the Netherlands is that the transportation system is amazing, much more modern than what we have in Vietnam. I found many automatically machines for travelling ticket purchasing with many gates to different platforms leaded by clearly signs guiding tourists in 3 languages, therefore, although in the rather big airport, I could not get lost. People behave politely and quietly. Somehow, a thing just came to my mind “Ah, that’s what a developed country is, I myself will be able to learn many things from now on”.

From Amsterdam to Breda, it took me a half hour by train. My city is a small one, clean and windy. The taxi brought me to school with 2 euro discount for a warm welcome. Then a teacher dropped me home by her owned car. How come locals here were that nice? It would be a really awesome start, I thought.

From arrival day, I spent one week before the introduction day for just a walk and observation. The city is quite peaceful and quiet at night. Shops close normally at 6pm, the thing that you cannot find in Vietnam where every shop opens till 10pm. I also had chance to chill with some of my classmates who also arrived soon like me. They treated me so well with a warm caring and sharings. We helped each other in daily stuffs like how to find a bike, how to reach a supermarket, how to get cheap furnitures. We are just like a small family and there seems to be no distance between us, persons who just met a few times.

In the introduction course, I had a very very awesome trip to Belgium. Because classmates all knew each other and so did our coordinator – Ms. Wesley, we enjoyed the trip much more joyfully than I imaged. We played games on the way and by that, got to know more from each other.

Team building Master TDM

On day 1, I spent the whole time for teambuilding. We had to build a tower by bamboos, a case with a few woody sticks that we all had to stand on it, and even had to make fire without any lighter. We talked more, discussed more, not by daily stories but by a serious way to deal problems. From that, we learned how to cooperate to get success. At night, we enjoyed dinner, playing games around a camp fire. It was really cold honestly but beside each other, we found that these moments are such unforgettable ones  in our life. On day 2, I had a crazy time with a challenge tour. Till now, I even could not know what motivated me to do all those freaking things. I had not tried them once in my life: climbing on mountain, crossing the bridge made by ropes, hanging on the net like spiderman (or more exactly – spiderwoman) and some more other actions. The group and the guide encouraged me a lot. Without them, I do not think that I would have had enough power to face these challenges.

After all, I did find that the course is really a right choice of mine and I can gain many valuable things from. Not only knowledge and experience getting from working and being taught by professors, it also is the chance to know people around the world. By our classmates, I saw 13 nationalities with 13 different cultures. For sure, I may not be able to reach all 12 destinations, but from friends, I can know every potential value of these countries. Lastly, I do hope that we can go through all together with success as well as enjoying Master with experience and joy. Let’s start and end up the course with our bright smiles!