This morning we took an 8:30 a.m. metro ride to InHolland’s Rotterdam campus. Before getting a tour of the campus we were given a tour of Rotterdam by some faculty. The weather wasn’t great today, for it rained almost the whole day. The tour was very informative and I found it interesting. Because Rotterdam was bombed by the Germans during World War II, the architecture is more modern than what we saw in Amsterdam. They’re sophisticated buildings that are really cool looking both on the outside and inside. We were also informed that Rotterdam has a strong connection to New York City because there was a port that transported immigrants from Rotterdam to New York. So, Rotterdam based a lot of their architecture after Manhattan. A major focal point of the tour was placemaking, a new concept to me. Placemaking is a process of creating thriving public spaces through sustainable practices. The major things he pointed out were the green spaces, the plans to build more skyscrapers, and a beach next to the skyscrapers. This once again leads to the sustainability in the Netherlands.
After the tour around the city, we went to the 15th floor of InHolland’s Rotterdam building. Here, we received a presentation on the university. I noticed a lot of differences, including the cost of school, application process, and the more hands on learning. The cost to attend colleges in the Netherlands is around 2,000 Euros a year. This is crazy to me because we pay like 20 times that in the U.S.. Furthermore, the woman said that there isn’t really an application process. We then had lunch provided by the university which was okay. They don’t really put meat on their sandwiches here, so I don’t really like them, but when I’m hungry I’ll eat anything. The last thing we did was take a quiz on the Netherlands that I didn’t do too well, but I learned more about the Netherlands from seeing the right answers.
With free time for the rest of the day, I went with a few other members of the group to The Hague, home of the government in the Netherlands. It’s weird because Amsterdam is the capital, but The Hague is where the government officials are. Here, we explored the city, shopped at expensive stores, and grabbed dinner at Cloos. The Hague has really cool shops. I didn’t buy anything because it was expensive and I need to stop spending money.
