To start our day, we went on a company tour to Hoerbiger. This is a family-owned company that began making parts for ICE engines, and still continues to operate in this capacity to this day. It now needs to pivot into the EV industry in order to survive in the automotive sector. Our tour consisted…
Category: Frederick Honors College
05/20 – The Delta Works (Oosterscheldekering Site)
Today, we drove South to the province of Zeeland to visit the small artificial island of Neeltje Jans, which is where the Delta Works houses their informational center on their infrastructure and is right in the middle of the system of storm surge barriers that comprise the Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier). This was…
Storm Barriers and Sea Lions
Today we visited the Delta Works. The Delta Works is a set of dams, dikes, and storm surge barriers in the Netherlands that were started to be built after the disastrous flood of 1953. Construction on the Delta Works lasted from 1954 to 1997. The goal of the Delta Works was to shorten the coastline…
Fighting the Tide
After starting my day with some Nutella and cucumbers, I waited for the arrival of our bus to Deltapark Neeltje Jans. Delta Works is a massive project around the Netherlands to protect the country from flooding during storms and high tides. Delta Works was mostly motivated by the flood of 1953, which we learned about…
Barbie’s Netherland DreamHûs
During the ninth day, as part of the Plus3 Study Abroad within the Netherlands, our group navigated through the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). The entire day was devoted to understanding the sustainability practices and skills promoted at the university. For the first part of the visit to TU Delft, the university brought our…
The Delta Works
Today was our tenth day in the Netherlands, and it began at 7. For breakfast I had a Latte, strawberry yogurt, sliced meat and cheese, a boiled egg, and pancakes. After breakfast, we boarded the bus to head to a storm surge barrier, which was built as part of the Delta Works. The barrier we…
Seals and Storm Surge Barriers
Delta Works, a storm surge project located in Zeeland, highlighted our 10th day of exploring the Netherlands. Taking over 30 years to complete, the project with the intention to help cushion the impacts of storm surges on the coast and protect the coastal Dutch. The construction of the Delta Works system was promoted by the…
The DeltaWorks Visit (Day 10)
Today was a very exciting day for me as an engineering student since we got the opportunity to tour the engineering marvel that is the DeltaWorks project. This 30-year project was a response to the North Sea Flood of 1953, which laid waste to several Dutch towns and left around 1,800 people dead in its…
Controlling the Storms: Day 10 in Rotterdam
Today we visited the Delta Works Museum/Park where we learned about the mechanism that they came up with to protect The Netherlands, and the surrounding lands, from storm surges. This came after the Floods of 1953, as these devastated many homes and killed over 1800 people after the wind direction, wind force, and tidal cycle…
Day 10: DMZ and Baseball
Today, we started off around 9:30 with an hour-long bus ride to the DMZ. Since December, this had been a part of the trip that I was very excited for. At first, I anticipated being able to see the JSA (Joint Security Area), but Chris told me that it had been closed ever since that…
Pier Perfection (Or Maybe Knot?)
For day 10, we woke up early for our hour-long bus ride to Deltapark Neeltje Jans, located in the Zeeland region. The museum is dedicated to the aftermath of the Flood of 1953 and the Delta Works projects that followed. It specifically focuses on the Oosterscheldekering (“Oosterschelde Barrier”) and how it was constructed. After the…
Making Green(er) Villages
5/19/25 Today, we had the opportunity to tour Delft University of Technology, tour their green village, and partake in a Climate Fresk. After we arrived, the first thing we did was take a tour of the Green Village. This space exists as a testing ground for sustainable innovations, and due to the university’s legal status,…
Roll Delft
On day 9, we traveled to TU Delft, one of the best universities in the world for engineering, to tour their Green Village and participate in a climate frisk. The Green Village is a community on campus dedicated to letting people test sustainable startups and new ideas. Their first building we visited on our tour…
05/19 – Technische Universiteit Delft
Today, we spent the day at TU Delft, the largest (and I believe oldest) technical university in the Netherlands and one of the most prestigious in the world. TU Delft was one a short train ride away from our hotel in Rotterdam, located between the cities of Rotterdam and The Hague. Upon arrival, I was…
The Delft-ense Against Climate Change (5/19)
Day 9 was an event-filled one! We started our morning with a short train ride from Rotterdam to Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). There we were welcomed by the looming colorful buildings and beautiful canals seamlessly slithering through the campus walkways. Our first stop on campus was the Green Village, a small village that…
Watersnoodmuseum
5/18/25 Today, we didn’t have any event scheduled until the 1 pm, so I took the opportunity to sleep in a little later. After waking, I headed over to the Albert Heijn which is a supermarket not unlike a Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh. Here, I got a bacon-ei sandwich (meaning bacon and egg sandwich). After…
A Parallel University
Today, after a quick breakfast in the Rotterdam hotel, we visited TU Delft, the largest technical university in the Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, and design, so it was a perfect place for us to visit, as many people on this trip are studying engineering, including me. The first place we went to…
Fresk: A Game of Global Warming
Today we took the train to the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). We took a stroll through their campus before arriving at the Green Village. Just like the rest of the Netherlands, TU Delft was tree-lined and bike-lane-paved. Their architecture struck me as quite modern, and the campus was sprawling compared to Pitt. We…
TU-rning Delft Green
Feeling fine because it’s day 9! After taking a train from Rotterdam Centraal to Delft Campus, we walked through TU Delft’s sprawling, wooded campus to get to the Green Village, a hub and live testing ground for sustainable innovations. There, we met our tour guide Lars, who’s a master’s Civil Engineering student at TU Delft….
Drop-in to Delft: Day 9
Today I had the opportunity to explore the city of Delft, first at TU Delft, one of the world’s foremost engineering and architecture institutions. I really enjoyed the chance to get hands on with an institution (TU Delft) that has both deep expertise and investment in the topics associated with sustainability (illustrated by the green…