Ever since I studied abroad in Europe in 2021 I longed to be back in Europe! I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to study abroad not once but twice in my time at DU! I really don’t know how I managed to swing it but I have 0 regrets! I had the time of my life being abroad and am so incredibly lucky! In the last 5 months I was able to visit 15 countries, many of which I had not been to before. There is so much freedom abroad and it is so easy to visit other countries. Where in the US can you find a flight for less than 20 euros? Studying abroad at the end of my final year was perfect as I had saved up money and had time. I know for sure I will never have the time to travel 4 out of 7 days every week and see a new country. It is a different kind of grind for sure. The advantage of studying abroad was that I had a home base to come back to when I needed to recover.
My favorite country from this time around was Switzerland! The only thing I ever heard about Switzerland was how expensive it was. I was enchanted by its beauty! Switzerland was so green and straight out of a fairytale. I am still obsessed with the bright blue lakes!
Italy was of course gorgeous as always! It is such a big country and I still have so much to see there. I will definitely be returning there. I loved Paris more than the first time, but like Italy, I still have much to see of France since I have only been to Paris. I was surprised by how much I loved Southern Spain and Prague. Both had incredible architecture and I loved the palaces in Spain. Southern Spain for sure trumps Portugal.
Since I was based in the Netherlands, I had time to travel and see more than just Amsterdam which I had previously visited. I visited Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Veenendaal, Utrecht, Valkenburg, and of course Maastricht. As a city girl though I have to say that after it all, Amsterdam is still my favorite city in the Netherlands. The other cities are too small for me to live in and I really love the canals and architecture of the houses on the canals in Amsterdamn.
Now for the studying part of abroad. People don't go abroad to study. They go abroad for the experiences and to travel and that was my intention going into it. I took two courses. One was through CES and called the Economics of European Integration and the other was through Maastricht University and was Human Resource Management. Initially, I hated the CES course because it was all the American students placed in a course that was lecture based and didn't even follow the problem based learning system Maastricht University follows. Turns out, I actually learned better through the lecture based class and learned a lot about the history of Europe. The course had two exams both of which I did well on. I also opted to do an independent study in which I wrote an 18 page paper about the impact of the Ukrainian war on the German economy. I found the course material very interesting and can actually say I learnt something about European history!
The Human Resource Management course I took at Maastricht University followed the problem based learning system. Although it sounds novel, I quickly realized it just meant there are no professors and students are expected to teach themselves the material. The class was entirely discussion based and there was a tutor who takes attendance and is there to oversee the discussion. The tutor assigns about 8 hours of reading per week and you are expected to run a 2 hour session. For this facilitation, you have to have done the readings ahead of time and plan out activities and discussions that the other students can engage in for 2 hours. The facilitations were quite boring but that is nothing against the people running them because they put in the work. It just seemed that everyone struggled a little or a lot to be able to teach material to the class they had just learned about. Essentially, we were paying to teach ourselves the material. For the course grade, we had two group papers that were divided and conquered. I never even read the final versions if I am being honest. For the final there was a paper that I have no idea what I wrote about. I tried to ask the tutor some questions but to my frustration he said he could not answer them. So all in all I personally would not pay for an education at Maastricht University. It was, however, part of the experience and I did get to meet students from other countries. There were a lot of Italians and German students sprinkled with very few Dutch students. I did find it interesting how there were no Dutch students present.
While I wasn't traveling from the Monday - Wednesday period I was on the study grind. I only skipped 3 classes total and did all the readings and homework. This left me with little social time in Maastricht but I had 4 full days of travel every week so it was a trade off. I wish I had been more social with my American peers but I met so many people while traveling it didn't bother me too much.
Overall I thoroughly loved my study abroad and highly encourage everyone to do it! It was such an incredible opportunity and I learned so much about myself and the world around me. Yes, I made many mistakes too but that is all a part of the experience! Until next time Europe. I will miss you dearly.
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