Today started like every other day: breakfast at the Generator. We got a late start today, and left the hostel at 10:30 to embark on our journey to the University Van Amsterdam. I was really excited for this visit because in a week full of engineering talks, we were finally getting to the business aspect of the trip. Our tour guide Thomas, who was a student in the business school, walked us around the campus and told us about the university. The University Van Amsterdam has several campuses, but we were on the largest one with around 18,000 students. Though there were many similarities to college in the US, I couldn’t help but notice all the differences. The most shocking thing is that an entire year of tuition is only 2,000 euros. When we told Thomas how much our Pitt tuition costs, it looked like he almost fainted. Glad to know that some countries don’t want their students drowning in debt! Another difference was that there is no housing through the university; everybody lives in their own place. Also, there were massive bike garages for all of the commuters. Basically everyone rode a bike to class, and it was rare to see cars around.
After the tour, we ate a delicious lunch at the cafeteria (which was definitely better than the eatery). Some of us went to a local cafe to get some coffee and sit outside. It was a really nice day, just a little breezy. We eventually had to get moving again, this time to our canal cruise at 2 o’clock. Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Sophia before this because she has to work with another group coming to Amsterdam soon. Thank you for being a great guide and friend Sophia, we’ll miss you! We all walked to the canal cruise and enjoyed the leisurely ride through Amsterdam’s center. The boat guide gave us a lot of cool facts about the surrounding sites and businesses along the way. It was like listening to a podcast, but actually being there to see it!
Around 3:30pm, we got off the boat and split off into groups for the rest of the day. Ava, Lauren and I trained to another part of the city to do some gift shopping and walking around. We ate at this delicious Italian place called Café Piazza, and got some gelato (of course) on the walk home. Overall, today was a really fun and chill day, and I’m glad I got to learn all about the University Van Amsterdam first-hand. You never know, maybe I’ll end up there someday!