Cristina-Bianca Balta

356586
6 June 2018

The best of both worlds

How the Romanian and Dutch educational systems influenced my choice of
becoming a Graphic Designer

Being an international student in The Netherlands has its challenges — from getting
used to the language to adapting to the new environment— but the experience is different for
each one of us. For this piece I used my experience at this school (STUDIO).
In this article I will describe how the Romanian educational system formed my way of
thinking and how the Dutch one is constantly “opening my eyes” to new ways of approaching
a certain subject. I consider this to be an important issue in my development as a Graphic
Designer. The main goal of this article is to describe my experience not using facts but rather
try a personal and comical approach.
The Netherlands has always been considered a model regarding education by the
Romanian Ministry of Education due to the fact that it prepares its students for the real life
by teaching them useful and practical subjects. In Romania, everything is quite different. We
are praise for our over-qualified students, huge amount of general knowledge, but when you
are one of the kids that attend a high-level school, things seem a bit different. I have always
struggled with meeting all of the teachers’ requirements, with the ridiculously huge amount
of studying and with the schools’ expectations.
But there is also a bright side. Even if I hated everything about it, the educational
system formed me as a more organised, practical and logical person. I will tell you more
about this later on.

The organisational differences between the two

I have been struck by how complicated the Dutch educational system is ever since I
found out about it. In order to show the differences I have made found diagrams in which
both countries’ educational systems are described.

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 The Dutch educational system

Compared to the Romanian one, the Dutch education levels takes way longer.

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 The Romanian educational system

11th grade-13th grade

11th-12th grade

5th-10th grade

1st-4th grade

Let me explain. It might look complicated, but there is not much to know.
The early education formed by ante-preschool and pre-school education are not
compulsory. That is also called kindergarten.
Primary education is basically the first important level of education. The students have
only one teacher called an “educator” who teaches all of the subjects ( Romanian,
Mathematics, Natural Sciences, History, Geography, Civic Education, Religious Education,
Physical Education—sports, Musical Education, Arts and Drawing and Personal
Development, Informatics —IT).
The secondary education is formed by Middle school(5th-8th grade) and the first half
of High school(9th-10th grade). From the 5th grade, the students start having more subjects,
each subject with its own teacher. The extra subjects that are part of the Middle school are
Physics, Chemistry, Biology (the three of them used to be one subject - Natural Sciences),
Latin and Technological Education.

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 High school lasts for 4 years. the first two of them (9th-10th grade) are compulsory but
the next two are not (11th-12th grade). The are not exams in-between the two cycles. If a
student dropped out of school during his teenage years and wants to continue his education
in his adulthood, there is a low frequencies education program which lasts for 5 years. There
are 5 types of High Schools that allow students to go to a higher level of education —
University: National Colleges (the one I attended)— the most prestigious High schools in the
country; Military Colleges, Technical Colleges — students learn specific practical skills;
“Liceu”, translated as High school, although it is at a lower level than College; and Scholar
Group — the lowest form of high-school education. There are also “vocational” High schools
with an emphasis on Arts, Theological Studies or Sports Studies.
Afterwards, there is University or Post-High school education. The University studies
are the most valued ones and they allow students to follow a Masters degree or a PhD
afterwards.

Except for University, all levels of education are free of charge, unless you choose a
private school. In University, the students with the lowest grades have to pay a tuition fee but
if their grades improve they might be able to benefit from the free of charge education (the
students in the higher half don’t have to pay). This is a way of encouraging students to study
more.

My experience as a student

Being a Romanian student was hard. Especially because of the fact that I went to one
of the most valued National Colleges in the country. I had chosen a program with an
emphasis on Natural Sciences (Biology, Physics and Chemistry), but also with a lot of Math,
since I wanted to apply to Medical School and become a surgeon (look how well that went). I
can’t really say I enjoyed it but it really made an impact on my behaviour and my way of
thinking as a designer. Even if the school does not really promote creative thinking, I always
tried to use what I studied as a way to create original things. For example, I found an unusual
inspiration in Chemistry and started drawing mandalas similar in shape to the arrangements
of the molecules. I also had a subject called “Visual Sciences” which practically was a class
where they would teach you how to draw. I can’t say the idea of becoming a graphic designer
came from there because it’s particularly difficult to understand the drawing techniques from

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a teacher with Parkinson’s. The thing that I am really grateful for is the fact that I had so
much to study that I learned how to manage my time properly. The pressure was really high,
having to study for 18 subjects every week. Don’t get me wrong, I did hate it and I don’t think
this is the most useful way of studying, but it did have its perks. I noticed during my first year
at Minerva that I think in a different way than my classmates form other part of the world
and even from The Netherlands. I can honestly say I learned how to be productive in a short
period of time, how to handle the pressure of the deadlines and to come up with a practical
solution for the teacher’s assignments thus making me a good candidate for studying abroad.
Because of the school’s traditional and conservative style, it wasn’t easy to apply to a
University abroad since no one would help you. I can say that choosing Minerva Art
Academy was out of pure luck. Being the only school that grabbed my attention and the only
one where I had applied to, I tried to do my best and work harder than ever.
The first year in The Netherlands was difficult - not knowing anyone in the city, not
speaking the language and trying to avoid all of the Romanians around… The biggest change
was the school. I expected a tense atmosphere where students go and sit in a classroom for 4
hours in a row just listening to the teacher talking and having enormous amount of studying
to do. Everything was quite the opposite, I was struck by the friendly teachers, by how open
and communicative they were. Compared to any University in Romania, here it’s the
opposite. Even if the school was everything any student in the world would want, I found it
frightening. I did not know what to expect and how to work with so much freedom.

The first block

Graphic Design was the first block and, from my understanding, everything was new
also for the teachers. I didn’t know how to use any of the softwares required for digital
creation or editing. It was a nightmare for me. I felt pressured to do more than I physically
could and was expected to know more than I did. It was difficult to recognise a good logo or
poster design, thus my designs were bad. We had to redesign a website from scratch - making
wireframes, icons design, layout etc… I felt overwhelmed and I thought it was a bit too much
to do with too little information offered.
The first block passed and I was left with a bad impression, not wanting to do something
digitally ever again.

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 Communication is key

If there is one thing that I learned after the Graphic Design block, it’s that
communication is required in order to make the teachers understand you.
I wasn’t used to approaching my “superiors” in order to complain about the program.
In Romania this would never happen. The teachers would just tell you to get over it and
probably with the next opportunity, they would fail you. So you can understand my fear. I
realised that the schedule and the program was new for everyone else as well, including the
staff so when we were asked what we thought about the program, we recommended a new
approach. The next thing I know is that they rescheduled the classes, got rid of some subjects
and even introduced new ones, everything done in less than one semester. That’s when I knew
I chose my school wisely.
Teachers actually listening to the students’ problems and trying to solve them without
feeling offended or undermined was unprecedented for me. I learned how to ask guidance, to
talk more about my work and that there is no shame in asking for help when you don’t know
what to do.
As the year was close to ending, I had to decide what major I want to pursue. Of course,
at that time I forgot the difficulties I had been through during the beginning of the year and
somehow fell in love with the idea of becoming a graphic designer. I could see myself working
on my computer, creating logos and posters and, inevitably, wearing a turtleneck sweater or
some fancy scarf thrown over my shoulder.

A new beginning

Full of energy and wearing the soon-to-be-missed summer tan, I dove into my second
year at Minerva, excited about how the program changed and the new things I was going to
learn. I considered it a new beginning since I had heard that a lot changed in the Graphic
Design department. It was a surprise when I found out that we had to choose the teacher
we’re gonna be learning from and, to be honest, it was quite confusing.
After the groups were decided and each one of us was assigned to a teacher, depending
on his or hers choices, I was really curious to see how that is going to work. Unfortunately, I
chose poorly and I wasn’t really happy with what we had to do. I still had to learn a lot so I

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asked to be moved to a teacher who is willing to teach me the basics. This was the best choice
I could have ever made. I always had this idea that in order to be good at something, you have
to like what you are doing and now I finally loved what I was learning and I was excited about
trying new things and experiment.
You could still see the influence of my experience as a Romanian student. I would try to
calculate everything, design everything logical, without doing anything for just the sake of the
aesthetics. As I progressed, I realised that sometimes I have to do something just because it
helps the composition.
I think that being in an international environment is underrated. Meeting new people,
from all over the world, is always inspiring. I learned the most just from looking at other
people’s work and see how much the country you come from influences your designs, even
Romania. Even if it’s considered a conservative country, regarding design, you see different
things everyday. It might be a new bio food brand or even an ad for a small clothing line. This
is why I always tried to make friends that come from other countries.
Even if it was a good why to follow what you wanted to do, choosing only one teacher
meant that there would be some limitations. Let’s say you really like Physics. You might be
good at it but, in order to understand everything, you need to study Math as well. This is how
I see studying Graphic Design as well. I love designing posters and logos, but without knowing
the basics of typography or how to use it in your advantage, it’s almost impossible to create a
good design. Well… the first semester was kind of like that. We would make a lot of designs
but they weren’t really based on anything, we didn’t know the basics or any theory actually.
Previously, I mentioned that communication is key and I can’t repeat that enough. This
is what, I think, saved me from creating clueless designs based only on my ability to make a
distinction between something that looked good and something that looked… well, quite bad.
In the second semester, everything changed. We would receive papers with actual theory and
learn so many things. You would never see this happening in a Romanian University -
teachers changing the whole program just because the students “don’t think they are learning
enough”. I consider this to be the biggest perk of studying at Minerva.

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 So how did all of this is influencing my future career?

I realise that everything we are doing and learning throughout these years will certainly
influence my development as a graphic designer. The pragmatism of the Romanian program
and the freedom from the Dutch one combined helped me in achieving more than I ever
imagined. I can see all of the Math I studied in high school in my work and my way of
thinking. I can recognise the Dutch innovative style in my ideas. I have yet to discover what
kind of designer I will end up being, but the journey will definitely be exciting and interesting.

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