This morning, we visited another InHolland campus, located in Rotterdam. I was expecting this visit to be like our trip to the Delft campus, where we learned about their aeronautical engineering program and academics, but I instead got an in-depth look into the past, present, and future of Rotterdam.

We started off with a tour of the areas surrounding the university with information about how the city came to be and future directions city planners hope to take. I learned that 85% of Rotterdam was destroyed in a bombing during World War II. This completely flattened the city causing it to need to be rebuilt. Currently, Rotterdam is still going through a spatial transformation, as city planners decide how to move forward with developing the city to make it more welcoming, livable, and sustainable— a process dubbed “placemaking.” Unlike Amsterdam, which has structures that have been standing for hundreds of years, Rotterdam is a clean slate that architects are experimenting on. Current focuses are shifting the port area to a residential area with more outdoor spaces, designing the city around the prominent use of cars, and generally placing a greater effort towards meeting the needs of residents instead of financial stakeholders. This reminded me of our program theme, “From Concept to Customer” because the concept of the city has, for the most part, been to appease the stakeholders responsible for funding projects in order to attract more tourism and increase marketability. However, the new concept has been to make the city more livable and sustainable for residents. Efforts to do this include creating more green spaces, incorporating the city’s history into its developing architecture, and considering the diverse needs of its population.

Though I was intrigued to learn about how Rotterdam will grow and develop, some details about what’s to come made me wonder if every plan that is being made is the best decision to better the city. First, our tour guide mentioned that four tall skyscrapers are planned to be built by the water bank that is currently unused, and a beach would be made behind the buildings. He brought up a few good points about why this may not be a great idea which I agree with. The skyscrapers would cast an almost constant shadow over the beach, and it is currently an area prominently known for drug use, which, if not addressed, could only get worse. There is also a general practice of gentrification in the entirety of Rotterdam that deepens wealth disparities within the city instead of working to unite its residents. For example, new schools are being built in areas that only upper-class citizens can afford to live in, which leaves all other children with the older, less developed schools. Keeping education separate and unequal will only widen the social and financial gap that already exists. To truly make Rotterdam more sustainable and have it developing the correct direction, efforts should be taken to cease sustaining preexisting disparities.

Following our tour and information session of Rotterdam, we visited an InHolland Rotterdam building that hosts its creative business, business administration, and law schools. During a short presentation, I learned about the philosophy behind InHolland’s education system, which is to maximize learning outside the classroom as much as possible through solving applicable real-life problems in “Living Labs.” This allows students to develop a “socially innovative mindset,” as they set out to apply their knowledge. Though this method of learning sounds like the perfect way to gain mastery of necessary skills, it can also be taxing for both the students and the institution. Working on projects may come with uncertainty, teamwork struggles, and wavering productivity. Our host informed us that students sometimes say that they would prefer a more traditional classroom setting.

Some other differences between InHolland and schools in the U.S. also stood out to me. Most prominently, the difference in cost between schools in The Netherlands versus schools in America significantly impacts the accessibility of higher education. Many students in the U.S. cannot afford to attend a prestigious institution because of the cost, and many others cannot do so without incurring large amounts of debt. It was shocking for me to hear that the cost of one year at InHolland is comparable to taking a single class at Pitt. Despite this, our host told us that studying in America is still very sought after by European students to gain the quintessential “American college experience”. Perhaps both American and European students are just looking for a change.

Overall, I had a great time learning about the history of Rotterdam and its architecture along with a glimpse into its schooling system during my visit to InHolland. Hopefully, someday I can return!