This morning, we took a train to the small city of Delft, where we visited a campus of the school InHolland. It is a school of applied sciences, which places emphasis on “learning by doing.” We spent the day with students and professors from the aeronautical engineering department, an engineering subject that is not presently available at Pitt. During a short lecture, we learned about the school and some basic history of the aeronautical industry.

The differences between engineering education in The Netherlands and the U.S. surprised me. As I touched on before, InHolland has a rigorous engineering curriculum paired with real-world applications of everything they learn. For example, third- and fourth-year students must complete a capstone project that tackles a relevant real-world topic. One of the students guiding us mentioned that after completing her first year of school, she felt like she had enough technical and practical knowledge to complete these projects. This felt different from what I am used to at Pitt because our first year is significantly less hands-on, and it instead focuses on gaining technical knowledge in core subjects. This holds true as well for InHolland, but to a smaller degree. I also found it interesting that taking the steps to get an engineering degree is sufficient to have enough experience and expertise to be marketable and successful when searching for a job after college. In America, it feels like you need to utilize many more outside experiences, such as co-ops and research, to have a well-formed resume.

Although there appear to be many more pros to getting a STEM education in The Netherlands, there were also some aspects of the program that made me question that. First, a professor shared that the retention rates past freshman year are only 60%. Because of the rigor of the introductory classes, many students do not pass the first year or do not return after. While this does indicate that the program is very effective and thorough, it also made me question its accessibility. Another detail that had the same effect was the distribution of male-to-female students. The professor shared that only between 5-10% of students enrolled at InHolland are female. This was shocking and upsetting to me because I had initially thought that the level of diversity here would have been comparable to engineering programs in the U.S. While we are still far from equity, we are making larger strides to close the gap. After completing my first year of engineering school and selecting a significantly male-dominated specialty, I understand the importance of diversity in schooling and beyond. I hope that it gets prioritized more in other places.

Finally, we participated in a little friendly competition of making foam-board planes and experimenting with modifying features to figure out the most aerodynamic plane design. This was a very fun activity, and I am happy to say that my team won!

Overall, I had a great and informative experience at InHolland Delft, and I am happy to have learned about what schooling is like in The Netherlands.