Woke up lovely and late this morning because our day started a little later today. Was nice to sleep in a little since we have been very busy. First, on the agenda, we went to the University of Amsterdam campus. Compared to VU, I liked this campus much better due to the city feel. There were a lot of similarities to the University of Pittsburgh and some differences as well. First, everyone gets admitted to the school by sending in a high school transcript and one short essay. But from there, our tour guide spoke on how about 50% drop out of school. Which I found very shocking and helped me understand why we have such a complicated system in place to apply to colleges. Similar to VU, the tuition was very trip ranging from 2,000 euros for local people and exchange students is about 10,000 euros. As you can tell, that is nothing close to what we pay at Pitt. In some ways, I felt like the campus was very similar to Pitt. The campus was, for the most part, all together and in the city which is precisely like Pitt, other than the buildings you must take a longer walk to or even a bus. On campus, there is very limited housing for the students, resulting in many students struggling to find somewhere to live, mainly because of a housing crisis in the Netherlands. That is one aspect I am very thankful for at Pitt because, as a freshman, we are guaranteed on-campus housing. We ended the tour by going to their dining hall. This dining hall was no eatery. The food was so fresh, and they had so many options. The dining hall was also located in the middle of the school for easier access which is very beneficial for students to get a bite to eat between classes. Overall, I was happy to see another university compared to Pitt and VU see the significant differences.

Next on the agenda, we took a train to the central station to start our canal cruise. On the cruise, we rode down a canal in a boat, where we learned about the surrounding area’s history. We even went to some of the places they mentioned! Today was very good, and I am sad it is closing.