After a quick breakfast at our hostel this morning, we took the tram to InHolland’s University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam. This is the second university we have seen in the Netherlands, and it was nice to be able to compare InHolland’s Rotterdam campus to the campus in Delft we saw a few days ago. Upon our arrival, three faculty members started by taking us on a tour of the surrounding area of the campus focusing on Rotterdam’s history and the place-making and development that is currently happening in the city.
During WWII, about 85% of Rotterdam was destroyed so most of the city had to be rebuilt. Due to this, many of the buildings are very modern-looking compared to Amsterdam. The part of Rotterdam we were in has a lot of developmental projects and regeneration going on, meaning that the city is trying to create sustainable places for residents and continue building up the city. I learned about one current project that is being put into place which is creating 8 urban parks around Rotterdam to increase their greenery and provide spaces for residents to spend time outside in a less city-like area. We spoke a lot with the faculty about how the city must understand the needs of its stakeholders, being its residents, to create spaces that will be used and appreciated. This is very similar to businesses, which must look at their stakeholders when making decisions and creating concepts or products that their customers will be interested in. In this case, these parks being constructed will only be successful if the residents and tourists in Rotterdam plan on using the spaces.
During the tour, I noticed a lot of similarities between Rotterdam and cities in the United States. Most of the buildings in Rotterdam have very modern architecture and tall towers that can be compared to buildings in New York City and Pittsburgh, but there are still a few that stand out from the others. These buildings are ones that survived WWII and still have a very old European look to them. I think it is really neat that all of these buildings with different histories and architecture are along the same streets and stand next to one another. We also got to see the Erasmusbrug, which is a bridge that crosses the Nieuwe Maas in the center of Rotterdam. This bridge reminded me a lot of the Tappan Zee Bridge that crosses the Hudson River in New York, and I found it interesting how there are so many ties back to the United States in Rotterdam’s architecture and history in general.
We also had the opportunity to speak with the international coordinator for business, finance, and law at the university, which taught me more about how schools in the Netherlands differ from the United States. I learned that at their university, professors work with small classes of 20-25 students and the university does not provide the same kind of housing that we get in the United States. This means that many students commute to school and live nearby, rather than staying in dorms on the campus. They also have a different grading system that is out of 10 points, which is not the same as the grading scale in the United States. The biggest difference I found, however, was the cost of obtaining a degree. Since tuition is regulated by the government for public universities in Europe, students pay a rate that is less than half of what most charge in the United States.
To end our time at InHolland’s University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam, we played a short trivia game to test our knowledge of the Netherlands. Although I did not finish on the leaderboard, I found that I learned even more about the country while I tried to answer various questions about sports and landmarks. My friends and I decided to stop at a Cat Café after our visit, so we took the metro over to one we found online. We had such an amazing time playing with all the cats and got some great food too!
