Two students from Ellesmere College 'went Dutch' this week with a trip to the Netherlands for a University open day.

Patrick Crowe, who is studying A-levels and plans to read linguistics, was joined by International Baccalaureate (IB) student Paula Lotze on the trip, visiting Amsterdam and Leiden universities, and Maastricht, respectively.

Patrick says the opportunities on offer at Leiden University were too good to turn down a visit.

He said: "Not only is Leiden one of the highest-ranked Dutch universities, but one of the modules offered as part of the Linguistics degree is called 'descriptive Linguistics' which is an area I am extremely interested in.

"Leiden is a very pretty and cosmopolitan city with a global outlook. I plan to find a suitable flat to share with like minded students, as campus accommodation in Leiden is quite rare, so in addition to my course taught in English, I may even learn Dutch as part of the university experience.

Prefect Paula attended a university experience day offered by Maastricht University's faculty of Business and Economics.

She said: "Maastricht is ideally located in Southern Holland.

"It was therefore not surprising that the 30 fellow applicants I spent the day with hailed from Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain and France as well as from the Netherlands.

"Faculty staff at Maastricht were international, too, and enjoyed showing us the impressive university facilities and the city of Maastricht.

"I enjoyed attending several tutorials where we conducted economic research in small groups for presentation to a larger audience in the afternoon. We also debated the economic impact of the latest political developments on the European and global landscape.

"This experience gave me a great insight into student life and I would recommend these university experience days to all other young economists interested in global perspectives."

Ellesmere College's Head of Sixth Form, Dr Tom Gareh, said: "It is wonderful to see our students looking at the wider opportunities available to them once they leave our Sixth Form and continuing to build on the experience that their engagement with their friends from all over the world at Ellesmere College has given them.

"They are role models for a bright future."