The undergraduate bachelor phase at university is where students build the foundation for all academic degrees and professional challenges that lay ahead in their future. It is the most important phase! UCR is devoted to helping students build the best possible foundation for their future endeavors. After UCR, the majority of our alumni go on to graduate programs and some pursue Ph.D. degrees at top-100 universities. Over 90% of our graduates report that if they had to lay a foundation again, they would choose UCR in a heartbeat. We are more than just a little bit proud of that.

UCR’s real secret is its small-scale, community-based Liberal Arts and Sciences approach to undergaduate education. Classes are small, interaction is intense, there is room for students to gradually find out what they are genuinely interested in — and what they are really good at! UCR’s dedicated teaching faculty has consistently been ranked among the very best in the Netherlands.

Because we are a multi-disciplinary Liberal Arts and Sciences program, you will hear classical music in the hallways while you are preparing to take a Thermodynamics course; you can combine classes in Physics with classes in Human Rights and Governance; you might go from Philosophical debates to explanations of the movement of the Earth in half an hour. At the end, you will graduate with a Bachelor’s degree and continue with, for example, a graduate program in Medicine, Law, Economics, History, or Environmental Engineering.

Academic excellence is about so much more than good grades and specialization. Our program combines deep learning with broad learning, embeds your academic passions with broad knowledge of methodology and ethics, and helps you become part of a highly supportive and safe social community, in which you will make friends for life. Just read some of our student and alumni experiences and see what being at UCR has meant to them.

Our alumni are scholars, journalists, scientists, medical doctors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and environmentalists; lawyers, musicians, bankers, human rights activists, artists, diplomats, strategic advisors—and more. They stand out through their self-confidence, civic engagement, and sense of opportunity. They make a difference in the world.

If you want to lay a foundation for a career guided by your own curiosity and social interests. If you want to fundamentally learn how to learn, if you want to step into a truly diverse and inclusive world, UCR is the place for you.