Universiteit van Amsterdam Reviews

Type of housing: corridor room

Arranged by: Host university

If returning, I would choose: corridor room

Why? It is a great advantage to live together with other students. You emeditly have a social network through the common situation. I met a lot of new friends through my year in a student accomodation. Highly recommendable.

Personal comments:
The housing at the UvA is in particular arranged for Master students. Most of them get a prety nice (and expensive) room. But there also are less nice and equally expensive accomodations, but in the end, the quality of the housing depends on the people you live with. In general I can say that most of the students were happy to have a place to stay at all and some places are really well located.

Describe host city: Students equally interact with the local and student community

Nightlife, Travel: Takes place mostly within the university/student environment

Activities: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
Living in Amsterdam is an experience itself. Wandering around the city is enough to enjoy it. Anyway, I strongly recommend to buy a bike and use it to go around. But take care of thieves! You should also buy a couple of good lockers to prevent your bike from being stolen when parked. The tram is also a good mean of transport. It goes everywhere and it is not expensive (as far as I remember). Obviously, there are some visits you are supposed to do: Dam Square, the heart of the city with the Royal Palace in one side; the famous Red Light District, which is more a touristic atraction than a neighbourhood of prostitution; a Coffe Shop, where joints are available in a menu (as in a restaurant)... A boat trip trough the canals is really worth it and nightlife is everywhere in the center of the city. Beyond nightlife, I must say that Amsterdam is a very cultural place. Its museums are excellent (Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Riks...) and it has also big and relaxing green areas to practice sports or just walking. Most of the people speak English and they are friendly to help visitors. There are plenty of Indonesian restaurants because Indonesia was a former dutch colony. You can try some of them but the food is very spicy. And don't miss the traditional pancake!

Course recommendations:
I recommend that my university should try to add a dutch introductory course to the curriculum of their international programs for an added advantage of studying in a country with another language and to help eliminate the feeling of a stranger in public places as a result of having a knowledge of the local language.

Personal comments:
Well, I will susgest that the university should try to have more english version of their academic events like discussions, career fair and so on, for the benefit of international students.

Language of instruction: English

Main source of funding:
Family

Other sources of funding:
Government assistance
An ERASMUS grant

Work opportunities:
I didn't explore any work options

Personal spending habits:
- housing was clearly not cheap, but since I come from Paris it was still cheaper for me to live in Amsterdam. Nightlife: coming from Paris, it also seemed very cheap to me.

Food, Travel: was more expensive than at home.

Overall, Telephone: was the same price as at home.

Nightlife, Housing: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
have plenty money saved; live in a shared apartment; choose subjects other than what you have studied at your home uni- the range of subjects on offer was fantastic, the political science and urban studies courses were superb

In my opinion:
Most people loved it.