- Student
- 17/12/2025
TU/e Student Ambassador: travel, tours & advice
Nearly one hundred students at TU/e can call themselves student ambassadors. They represent the university online, on campus, and at (inter)national fairs. “As a student I can explain way more about the study and student life than a regular staff member.”
Master’s student Mechanical Engineering (ME) Domingos Varela Marreiros was ‘scouted’ as a student ambassador almost a year ago. Since then, he has taken part in numerous talks, campus tours, and fairs. Last month, he even traveled to Indonesia to represent the university. Cursor spoke with him about the ins and outs of being a TU/e ambassador.
What do you as a student ambassador?
“As a student ambassador you basically do three things. You chat with prospective students who have questions, you can be booked to give them campus tours too, and you represent TU/e at study fairs – both in the Netherlands and abroad.”
“Answering questions happens through an online platform called UniBuddy. Prospective students who want to talk to a student from the study they're interested in, can visit the platform, pick a student with the right profile and send us their questions.”
As a student ambassador you basically do three things: answering questions, giving campus tours and representing TU/e at fairs
“The campus tours are usually booked by international students. During these tours I just talk about the TU/e, show the relevant buildings and answer all of their questions. You wouldn’t expect it, but there’s quite a lot of students who fly all the way to the Netherlands just to do these tours. I recently did a tour for a student from India who flew over with his family. Aside from Eindhoven also went to see Delft, and some universities in Germany.”
“And then there are the study fairs – smaller ones throughout the Netherlands, and a lot of bigger ones abroad. And every year between October and December you have these enormous ones, like the one I went to in Indonesia last month.”
You recently went to a big international fair, how was that?
“The experience was really great. It started off amazing because I got to fly in an Airbus A380, which was on my bucket list. If you don’t know: that’s the largest plane ever built and it has two stories. The flight itself, and other expenses during these trips – like hotels and food – are all covered by the university, so that’s all very nice.”
“The fair I worked at was called the European Higher Education Fair, which is the biggest fair for studying in Europe in all East-Asia. Almost every Dutch university was there, except for Utrecht and Tilburg.”
“The fair was spread out over three days and two different cities, Yogyakarta and Jakarta. It was pretty tiring, but all in all it went really well. Our stand was extremely busy all of the time. We actually had 25 kilos of brochures with us, and at the end of the fair they were all gone.”
“After these three days, there was one more day where I worked at a different, smaller fair, specifically for Dutch universities and universities of applied sciences. This event was held at the Dutch embassy, and after the fair we got a really fancy dinner there as well.”
Is it common for student ambassadors to go to fairs?
“No, most universities don't bring students to these kind of fairs, it’s often staff members working for the recruitment department or teachers that go. Out of all the Dutch universities present at the fair in Indonesia, I was the only student ambassador present.”
Out of all the Dutch universities present at the fair in Indonesia, I was the only student ambassador present
“If you ask me I think it’s good to always bring a student. As a student I can explain way more about the study and student life than a regular staff member. That’s probably also why our stand was so busy. Prospective students that visit these fairs generally like to speak with someone who actually knows what it’s like to study at the university in question, and me being one of the only students present was probably a plus to them."
“Now it was me and a teacher, but I think in the future the TU/e wants to move on to just students, and no staff – that would be cheaper too."
Did you have time to do some sightseeing while in Indonesia?
“It was a really full schedule, so I didn't have much time to explore the city unfortunately. To still be able to see some things in the area, I tried to wake up around 4 AM every day and went out before having to work at the fair.”
What type of person makes a good student ambassador?
“I didn’t have any experience with being an ambassador, giving tours, going to fairs et cetera. But I learned it very easily. Especially when you’re a bit extraverted and an easy talker like me, it doesn’t take much time to learn this role.”
“Of course, it does help when you’re already an active student. I did a board year at the athletics association Asterix, was an active member at my study association and was a student member of both the board of studies and the faculty council of ME. This helped me to learn a lot about how the TU/e works, aside from my own study.”
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