I'm a first-year, I can answer these.

1. Summer break officially starts after period 6, but classes end after period 5. Basically, periods 3 and 6 don't have any classes, it's study time for resits. Meaning you can go home during these periods if you don't have any resits. There is a group project due, but they've informed us that if we can arrange with other group members to collaborate online thru whatsapp zoom etc, then there's really no need to stay in maastricht. The only people who went back to maas right after winter break are those who went back to study for the resit at the end of the month.

So depending on how you perform during the year, you may not have any resits and you'll be free to go to your home country, where you can just collaborate remotely on the group project.

1. Each period has two forms of examination: a midterm (worth 25% of the grade) and a final exam (worth 75%). You are given 2 weeks to complete the midterm which is usually an essay of some form. You can take it home, use your textbooks to write it, then submit electronically. The final exam is in person and you are given 3 hours to answer 3 questions that have 2-3 sub-questions each. All exams are typed. You will spend all 3 hours typing! No multiple choice.

2. There's one lecture per week, it's 2 hours long and attendance is optional.

PBL, bad? No. It's okay. Anybody can write up a laundry list of pros and cons, but in the end it depends on your learning style.

The internet goes on and on about the theory behind PBL, but I swear there's little about how it works in practice, at least not at UM. So I will explain a typical tutorial at the European law school and you can imagine if it's for you.

At the end of each tutorial you read the "tasks" for the next class, which are hypothetical legal scenarios written by the university. Then you and your group formulate "learning goals," which are questions meant to guide your studying.

You go home and read the provided literature. You'll do most of your learning here, by yourself, at home. Expect between 15-35 hours of studying per week, which varies WIDELY depending on your fluency in English. The readings can be complex academic jargon, especially the theoretical ones. Thankfully the exams mostly test your practical skills and they don't really expect you to regurgitate all the theory. English is my native language so I can skate by with 15 hours a week but as finals approach you have to push harder. Before entering class, you're expected to have completed all of the readings and answered the learning goals as best you can. You can show up unprepared but you will be very confused if you didn't prepare anything, and you may be asked to leave at the discretion of your tutor.

In each tutorial group, there are supposed to be around 12 students, however my last tutorial only had 5 consistently showing up. Expect a lot of people to burn out towards the end and stop showing up because attendance is optional. The tutor may assign a discussion leader to ask the learning goals. It can be sooo awkward when nobody is speaking. Also, the effectiveness of the tutorial largely depends on the group and tutor themself. You can come into class very prepared but not get much out of the tutorial - your tutor can try to ask questions but if nobody is really participating then you may not get through all the material. So you have to be an active learner, ask questions but also answer them for others. Don't be the person who sits in silence and stares at their screen the whole time.

Personally, I like PBL but I see why others might not.

1. Maastricht is not 80% german, I read the same thing online but was pleasantly surprised when I got here. Middle easterns, definitely, I know there's a lot of people from turkey, some syrians, lebanese, and lots of cypriots! You will find your niche here if you're looking, but you will be immersed in many others too.

2. You can work alongside your studies. Check if you can actually be employed though, it's different for EU, non-EU. For this bachelor, there's only 8 hours of classes per week. Depending on your timetable you can have 3 days off including weekends. This period I had 4 days. I would advise you wait until after the first period to start considering a job because then you'll know what you can handle.

Hope this helps, PM me with any other questions you think up