Roosevelt Academy in Middelburg, the youngest University in the Netherlands, recently celebrated its first batch of bachelor graduates. Graduate Madelijne Daub admits of her three years at the college: "I really had no clue of what I was getting myself into…"

RA graduates 2007 celebrate 'taking the risk' together.

Roosevelt Academy in Middelburg, the youngest University in the Netherlands, celebrated its first batch of bachelor graduates. The 91 students who started at the international honors college in September 2004 received their degrees this summer, including Madelijn Daub who describes her experience at the college. 

Roosevelt Academy (RA) is an English-speaking Liberal Arts & Sciences university college, offering courses in Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science. RA is located in the centre of Middelburg, the capital city of the Province of Zeeland. Its students are registered officially at Utrecht University and receive their degree from this institution, one of the oldest in the Netherlands.

From a graduate’s point of view

Nevertheless, RA’s newest graduates chose RA specifically to become part of a ‘pioneering role’ as recent graduate Madelijne Daub reminisces in an article she wrote about her three years at Roosevelt Academy.

“Three years ago, I was admitted to RA, and I really had no clue of what I was getting myself into…Well, there turned out to be 125 other students who wanted to take that same ‘risk’ with me. Thank God,” writes Madelijne.

By her second semester, Madelijne was charging full-force into the experience.

“My second RA semester was more relaxed than the first one. For sure. With courses I had chosen myself, I was ‘getting into it,” she says.

The educational philosophy as envisioned by the Academy’s founders is based on the idea that a student benefits most from learning more about a variety of disciplines.

Students are required to take 24 courses in six semesters (= three years) in order to obtain either a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree, awarded by Utrecht University.

Exchange programmes

The Academy has also established its own exchange programmes, and in 2006, Madelijne participated in an exchange between Roosevelt Academy and UC Davis in California. She remembers 1 January as ‘a symbolic date.

“The airplane took off… To drop me in a country I had never visited before. No friends. No family. Just me. It really took some time to adjust, but I’m proud to say that I succeeded in establishing a complete independent life in California,” says Madelijne.

In 2007 Madelijne, who is hoping to launch her career in journalism, did an internship at the national newspaper Metro, an experience she describes as “irreplaceable” despite breaking her hand and foot while learning to ride a motorbike to gain insight for an article she needed to write on the subject. A mishap which Madelijne insists happened ‘during a storm’. “It’s a pity that I felt the need to take a motor class in order to write an article about it,” she writes.


Of the Roosevelt Academy Class of 2007, some students are staying in the Netherlands to pursue their masters, others are going abroad. Examples of universities where RA students have been accepted are Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, St. Andrews, and Central European University.

27 September 2007

[Copyright Expatica 2007]