Determination Leads to Success

On the 28th of July 2015- the day I left Suriname for good - I remember that a few of my close family members brought me and my mom to the Johan Adolf Pengel airport. I left Suriname with mixed feelings. I was very excited and I could not wait to start a ‘new life’ in the Netherlands, but on the other hand it was very difficult to leave because I had to leave my family. Especially my dad and my grandfather. Also at that time, my family and I were dealing with a real tragedy which was like a nightmare. When we finally arrived in the Netherlands in Den Helder, where I had been living for almost one and a half year my mother immediately decided to call all the universities where I had applied for, because I had not gotten any answers on my admissions. Unfortunately, we were told that I did not meet the admission requirements because my high school diploma was not accredited. At that moment, it felt like everything was falling apart. I was so disappointed and angry, but I did not sit...

In this blog, I would like to share some of my experiences which I have gained over the past three years since I have moved to the Netherlands to continue my studies. Class of 2015 My mother always told me that she wanted me to step into the big world, because she believed that I could develop myself way better and accomplish a lot more if I would be studying abroad. I never completely understood why she had always told me that, until I moved to the Netherlands. In June 2015, I graduated from the AlphaMax Academy, an English private school, at the age of eighteen years. I had finished High School and I was finally ready for tertiary education. Months before we, senior students, were graduating, we all needed to enroll at the universities abroad for the studies we wanted to do. At that time I applied at more than five universities for the program International Business and Management Studies.