On this lovely day we went to UVA (university van amsterdam). This is another college here in The Netherlands and it’s very different from the college we toured earlier. For example here the school doesn’t provide housing, instead students must find a place in the city to live and commute to campus each day. This is to promote students being involved in the city and not secluding themselves to one small part. It also helps to make tuition cheaper which is only €2000 for EU students. Here there are also many bikes on campus and they have a huge underground garage used for storing the bike. However this doesn’t stop people from still stealing bikes. Apparently here it is common for people to steal bikes and sell them at the local market. This made me think about the supply chain in this scenario. First the bike starts as parts and then it gets assembled and then sold and then stolen and then sold again potentially back to the same owner. Here it is also common for people to have their bike for 15 years or so which is a very long time, assuming it doesn’t get stolen of course. Back to the academic side of the tour, we learned that their undergrad studies only take three years and their grad studies only take one. This means in the time it takes American students to finish their bachelors, students here already have their masters and are working in their career. Our next stop in the school was at the cafeteria. Think of a fancy eatery. Here you could order food or get something to grab and go which was really nice. It was also very busy and filled with student life which was cool to see.

After the Business school visit, we went on a canal cruise. As we moved along the canals we learned about the history of Amsterdam. This gave me a much better understanding of the city and I feel like I was better able to appreciate where I am and where it came from.