Today, we visited the University Van Amsterdam’s business school. We walked to their campus in the morning, and were given a tour around their campus by two current business students. Their campus was really beautiful! It also helped that it was such a beautiful day outside. We visited their main building and we also saw their library, some classrooms, and their cafeteria! This university is more spread-out than what I’m used to in Pittsburgh. While Pitt has more of a city campus, this university has about 4 different campuses that are more spread out. Another interesting fact about their business school in particular, is that a majority of their programs are taught in English. They do have a lot of Dutch students, so most programs are bilingual, but I found it interesting that many of the signs around the university are in English. We also learned about the tuition for this university, which is very different from our tuition at Pitt! For an in-country student, the tuition is about 2,000 euros per year, and for an international student the tuition is about 10,000-15,000 euros per year.
Another topic that was discussed is the housing crisis, which has definitely started to impact students. Our tour guide is from Germany, and he informed us that at a point in time, he had to commute to the university from Germany for about 3 months! At Pitt, students have guaranteed housing as first-year students, which is something that some international universities don’t offer. While I’m not studying business, this was definitely an interesting university to learn about! I enjoyed getting to walk around another university’s campus and explore the differences between universities in the Netherlands versus universities in the United States.
After our tour of the business school, we had some lunch in their cafeteria with other students. The layout of the cafeteria kind of reminded me of the William Pitt Union back in Pittsburgh, they had a variety of food options there! After lunch, we went on a canal cruise. It was a really beautiful day out today! We took lots of pictures and had a very relaxing ride on the canal. It was a great way to end an eventful day and a very eventful week! I can’t believe that our trip is already coming to an end, I’m looking forward to our final company visit to Tony’s Chocolonely tomorrow.