Instructions for Motivation Video

Your motivation video is a key part of the application process, as it shows your potential for
development at UCG by demonstrating your passions, knowledge of the Liberal Arts and Sciences
(LAS), extracurricular activities and other relevant experiences. The motivation video is intended as
an opportunity to give the Board of Admissions a better sense of who you are as a person and as a
potential student at University College Groningen (UCG). This will determine whether you will be
granted an offer to study Liberal Arts and Sciences at UCG.

There is one mandatory question that you should address:

1. How will studying LAS at UCG help you achieve the awesome future you have planned for
yourself? (be specific, use examples and be creative here and identify your passions. To
answer this well you need to show what you know specifically about our programme).

You should address at least 1 and a maximum of 3 of the following questions:

2. How can a person (you, for example) become an independent and self sufficient learner?
(be specific here; you might start by defining what it means to be independent and self
sufficient).
3. What are important values to you in the multicultural society we live in? (How do you
address/use these values in your daily life? How do you actively see yourself contributing to
the community as a whole? For instance: what would you do if you saw someone being
bullied or attacked because of their race or religion?)
4. Why is it important for people to have the opportunity to help others in their community?
(What can we gain from this? What contribution do you feel you will make to the UCG
community? If you have experience with volunteer work use that in your answer)
5. What are the benefits of interdisciplinary work/study/thinking? (reflect on any experience
you have in this area and/or how an interdisciplinary education could help you in your future
career).
6. Tell us about something you are proud of but never (or rarely) get to talk about. (be specific
and use examples).

The strongest videos will demonstrate a clear and compelling understanding of the Liberal Arts and
Sciences education and our programme at University College Groningen AND will demonstrate both
creativity and passion.

Format

You are free to use editing/animation software but we must be able to see you for at least part of
your video. In addition, we must hear your voice in the video as well. Avoid reading (or appearing to
read) from a script - this makes for a very boring video!

Make sure your video is no shorter than 2 minutes and no longer than 5 minutes. You can use any
video software you wish but make sure that your final video is uploaded on YouTube. You will be able
to find instructions on how to create and share a video via YouTube on this website. We understand
that your video is personal and you would not like the whole world to access it. Therefore, we
suggest you change the privacy settings of your video to unlisted. You can find info on how to do that
here.

Please upload a link to your video in our Online Application System (OAS) in the field ‘motivation
statement’. Copy/paste the link in a PDF document and upload this document at Step 6 in OAS.

If you experience any problems with your application, please contact us at newstudents.ucg@rug.nl
for help.

Do not forget to have fun with it and good luck!