After UCG

Many students wonder where a Liberal Arts and Sciences degree can take them. Here, you can find more about where our alumni come from, where they live today, what our UCG graduates have gone on to study and the career paths they have pursued.

Facts and Figures

University College Groningen (UCG) was founded in 2014, and our first cohort graduated in 2017. Since then, we are proud to have built a growing alumni community of more than 850 graduates. After three years at UCG, students graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) or Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the University of Groningen, with around 80% of our graduates earning a BSc degree. Along the way, they develop the knowledge, skills and interdisciplinary perspective to pursue their academic interests and shape their own career path.

Our alumni community is as international as UCG itself, with graduates representing more than 35 nationalities across Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Oceania. Approximately 60% of our graduates are international and around 40% are national. Dutch is therefore the most represented individual nationality, while our international alumni come from countries including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, China, India, the United States, South Africa, and many more. This international community brings together a wide range of perspectives and cultures, preparing our graduates for further study and careers in an increasingly global world. The community also reflects a diverse gender balance, with approximately 70% women and 30% men.

Our graduates take diverse paths after UCG. Around 84% pursue a master’s degree, with 63% continuing their studies at universities ranked among the global Top 100, including University of Oxford, Kings College London, and Yale University. 13% go on to pursue a PhD. A rather small percentage of our graduates enter the job market directly or start their own businesses. Based on a national survey among all University Colleges in the Netherlands from 2023, around 80 % of our alumni would follow a Liberal Arts and Sciences education again.

Where our alumni live now

The majority of UCG alumni currently live in the Netherlands (73.0%), reflecting the strong connection many graduates maintain with the country after completing their studies. At the same time, the alumni community has a clear international footprint, with graduates living across Europe and beyond. Germany is the second most common country of residence (5.0%), followed by Italy, France, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This geographic spread demonstrates the global reach of the UCG community, with alumni building careers and lives in a wide range of countries.

For those alumni who decided to stay in the Netherlands, Groningen is the most popular city (64.1%), followed by Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Rotterdam.

Master's programmes after UCG

To give prospective students a better understanding of where UCG graduates go after their studies, we conducted an analysis of publicly available LinkedIn profiles in 2026.

As UCG graduates pursue a remarkably wide variety of master's programmes across many universities and disciplines, we grouped these programmes into broader academic clusters to provide a clearer overview of postgraduate destinations. The clusters are based on the primary academic field of each master's programme, allowing us to identify overarching trends while preserving the diversity of our graduates' educational pathways. At the time of the analysis, UCG had 726 graduates, and we were able to identify 418 graduates on LinkedIn.

The largest group (21.8%) continued into master's programmes in Economics, Business & Management. This was followed closely by International Relations, Policy & Security (19.9%), while Psychology & Neuroscience (17.2%) and Health, Medicine & Life Sciences (13.9%) also represent substantial pathways. Smaller but still significant proportions of graduates pursued master's degrees in Humanities & Culture (9.3%), STEM, Data & AI (6.5%), Sustainability & Environment (6.0%), and Law (5.0%).

These findings highlight the broad range of postgraduate pathways pursued by graduates of the Liberal Arts and Sciences programme, reflecting its interdisciplinary nature and the flexibility it provides for specialisation at the master's level.

Master's programmes within the University of Groningen

The University of Groningen offers a broad range of master’s programmes across a variety of disciplines. Below, you’ll find examples of the master’s programmes our graduates have gone on to pursue at the UG.

Facuty of Arts

Global Political Economy
Applied Cultural Criticism
Forensic Linguistics / Multilingualism
Writing, Editing and Mediating
Journalism
International Relations
Media and Business
Development Studies, Governance and Public Policy
International Humanitarian Action
Conflict, Security and Development
Politics, Philosophy & Economics
History
Arts and Cultural Studies
European Studies
Media Studies
Midden-Oosten Studies
Noord-Amerika Studies
Taalwetenschappen (research)

Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences

Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Political Science
International Criminology
Talent development and creativity
Visual Anthropology
Environmental Psychology
Clinical Forensic Psychology and Victimology
Cultural Anthropology: Sustainable Citizenship
Pedagogische Wetenschappen
Sociology
Educational Sciences

Faculty of Economics and Business

Economic Growth and Development
Economics
Business Administration Strategy
Duisenberg Honors Program in Quantitative Risk Management
Business Administration
Business Econimics
Human Resource Management
Economic Development and Globalization
Finance
International Financial Management
Marketing

Faculty of Law

International Human Rights Law and Global Criminal Law
Fiscaal recht
Global Crimial Law
IT-recht
Nederlands recht
Public International Law

Faculty of Medical Sciences

Medicine
Cancer and Stem Cell Biology
Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health and Life Sciences
Health Sciences - Specialisation: Infectious Diseases and Public Health
Nutrition and Health
Cancer, Stem Cells and Developmental Biology
Interdisciplinary Research in Health Dynamics
Human Movement Sciences
Molecular Medicine and Innovative Treatment

Faculty of Science and Engineering

Computational Physics / MPhil Scientific Computing
Science and Business Management
Public Sector Innovation and eGovernance
IT and Cognition
Service Systems Design
Artifical Inteligence
Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (also research track)
Biology
Science Education and Communication
Energy and Environmental Sciences
Biomedical Sciences
Computational Cognitive Science
Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences
Physics

Faculty of Spatial Sciences

Population Studies
Urban Studies
Cultural Geography
Society, Sustainability and Planning
Real Estate Studies

Facutly of Philosophy

Philosophy
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

Career paths after UCG

We also analysed publicly available LinkedIn profiles to gain a better understanding of the career paths alumni pursue after UCG. As UCG graduates work across a wide range of sectors and professions, we grouped their occupations into broader career clusters to provide a clearer overview of where alumni go after graduation. The clusters are based on the primary field or sector in which alumni work, allowing us to identify broader career patterns while reflecting the diversity of paths pursued by our graduates.

At the time of the analysis, there were 726 alumni, and we were able to identify the current job descriptions on LinkedIn for 356 of them. The largest proportion works in Business, Consulting, Finance & Corporate Strategy (30.1%). This is followed by Research, Academia & PhD Careers (12.9%), Marketing, Media & Creative Industries (11.2%), and Sustainability, Community & Non-Profit Sector (9.8%). Other graduates work in Healthcare, Psychology & Clinical Professions (8.7%), Government, Policy, Public Affairs & International Organizations (8.4%), Technology, Data & Digital Innovation (5.6%), and Teaching & Education (3.4%).

These findings demonstrate the versatility of a Liberal Arts and Sciences education. Rather than preparing graduates for a single profession, the programme equips them with the interdisciplinary knowledge, analytical skills, and adaptability to pursue careers across a wide range of sectors, from business and research to government, technology, healthcare, education, and the non-profit sector.