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When people ask me about ways to relocate, they usually expect me to start with the classic route: get a job offer first, get the visa after that, move and work there.

But there are other ways to get in, and one is studying. Recently, I spoke to an engineer who, without tuition fees, used the educational path to move to the Netherlands, and his story shows how reliable this option can be.

Expats like him enter the country with a student residence permit and use that time to build the foundation that later supports a work visa and, in some cases, even citizenship.

I like the educational path because it moves at a steady pace. Now, with this, I’m not implying it’s a shortcut, but instead, a different door to enter relocation. And maybe, this is the route that could work best for you. To show you what I mean, I’ll share a story from an engineer who took this path in the Netherlands. His experience explains the whole thing better than any general advice I could give.

A brief breakdown of educational paths

Before I start with the story, let me give you a short, scannable list of some educational paths. Some you might already have heard about.

MBA programs: often expensive, but strong for networking and employer access, especially in the US. If you get into a top-university MBA, you can get a financing agreement to help pay for your tuition fees, so you don’t need to have those 200k in your savings account.
Master’s programs: common in Europe and Canada. Often paired with post-study work rights.
PhDs: longer and research-focused. Not ideal if the primary goal is fast entry into the industry. But some consulting firms in the US, like BCG, seem to hire PhDs for consulting roles.
Engineering Doctorates / applied doctorates: A quite unknown path that is usually confused with a PhD, but it’s actually a hybrid study–work program that can count as employment and residency time (like the Dutch example) and for which you can get paid.

Who is the educational path for? (And, who is it not for?)

The engineer I spoke with had already finished his engineering degree some years ago and had already been working for a few years.

I know “studying” has a “you must be young!” ring to it, but… This path isn’t only for early-career professionals. For many experienced developers, going to university is a legal and organized way to enter a new country. They bring years of work experience with them, and that makes them attractive to the local market.

This route works best for professionals who already have work experience, are willing to plan several years ahead, and see education as a strategic step toward relocation.

If your main goal is speed, or if you’re still unclear about what you want to do professionally, this path may feel heavy or slow.

How he found the program that became his way into Europe 🇪🇺🇳🇱

I recently spoke with an engineer from South America who studied in Europe, got work there, and is now a Dutch citizen. Yes, he has a passport from the Netherlands. This means he can work in Amsterdam, Madrid, Munich, or Limassol alike. And six years ago, he had not a single one of these privileges. He didn’t even speak Dutch!

Back in 2019, this engineer knew he wanted to work in Europe. He had no job offer, no contact, not a single hint of where to put his efforts. But he knew his priority was work rather than studying, considering he has spent so many years earning his Engineering degree, and considering he wanted to earn some euros.

So he thought to himself, “Okay, maybe a master’s program is my way in.” And from there he started searching with a very practical mindset: Programs in Europe (any country) that would let him live there, and ideally work there, for a short period.

Traditional PhDs felt too long for him and too research-heavy. He told me, “research, PhD type, seemed like a lot to me.” So he kept digging until he found a program in the Netherlands, specifically in the Eindhoven University of Technology called an Engineering Doctorate, a paid traineeship with a two-year track. No tuition fees, and you actually get paid. (In some countries, a PhD is informally called a doctorate, so his Engineer Doctorate program looks disorienting, but it’s a whole different thing from a PhD.)

Now, read this: The doctorate consisted of one year of studying and one year of working inside a real company. So yes, the program already included the “working” section, and they just about solved finding the first job for candidates. When he explained it to me, it sounded like he had found a bridge between being a student and being a worker.

And here’s the part about spending two years in the country that many expats might find interesting. Now that the program’s over, he stressed how the Dutch government counted those two years of the program as actual work for the five-year residency period needed before applying for citizenship. That’s when the “bridge” image flipped in my mind and became a fast-track commuter train toward European citizenship. This commuter train my friend took had a clear route, a planned stop inside a company, and it started counting his residency time from day one (and trust me on this one, this last detail is everything because it means he never had to pause the entire ride).

So he applied, went through a couple of interviews, got accepted, and moved to Europe. And from the moment he arrived, the structure worked in his favor. He earned his degree, yes, but he also quietly built the kind of foundation that would have taken him years to build if he tried moving through a regular international job search. Plus…

…the safety net he had in case things didn’t move fast

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