My view of college life in Amsterdam
It is great to see and experience the big difference between student
life in Amsterdam and here in Champaign. In Amsterdam, student life is very
separated from social life while here at UIUC everything is based on the university.
One example is the fact
that freshman are required to live their first year in undergraduate halls.
That would be impossible in The Netherlands because universities doesn’t even
have campuses and they do not own student living properties at all. My
university in Amsterdam is totally separated from the housing possibilities of
students. Furthermore, Amsterdam experiences very high demand on the housing
market, which results in the fact that many students still live with their
parents back home. Even upon graduation, more than 30% of the students are
still living with their parents.
Another example is the
entire campus vibe. My university in Amsterdam is just one big building
surrounded by other big business buildings on the Zuidas, Amsterdam. Once
leaving the university building, it will occur when you see a student. In
Amsterdam you see mostly tourist or just Amsterdam citizens, the student
population is compared to them a very minor group. As here on campus you nearly
only see students when you walk on the street, do your groceries or have a
drink in the bars.
The last example is the
difference in active registered student organisation base, which I will
continue on in this blog. Back in Amsterdam there isn’t such an active
registered student organisation base as it is here at UIUC. From my experiences
on Quad Day, I can tell that for everyone and everything there is an organisation.
I have joined some that attracted me, however I assume that I won’t see any
changes in these RSO’s during my short stay. It is hard to write about RSO’s,
because they nearly exist at my university in Amsterdam. A good example is the
sport organisations. At UIUC mostly all sports are connected with the
university and the most sports even have a university team. As you can guess,
back in Amsterdam sports and student life is totally separated.
So you might think that Amsterdam is a boring student city because there
aren’t a lot university related student organisations, but that isn’t true.
Amsterdam has some big student organisations, however they have nothing to do
with the universities because the universities don’t want to be associated with
the heavy drinking scenes at these organisations. I do have own experience with
this kind of student organisations and the structure differs by organisation.
In my student
organisation (Amsterdam Studenten Corps, ASC) there is a difference between
being a member of the organisation and being a member of the club inside this
student organisation. By joining the student organisation you are automatically
a member of ASC and during introduction you can be pledged to join one of the
many clubs inside of the organisation. Every member of the organisation will
get into a club. Most of the members are active for 4 years and in year 4 you
could be asked to join the board of the organisation ASC, which required you to
take a study break of a year. You can also be asked to join the board of your
club, what is important but doesn’t require breaking your study. Thus, the
board of the organisation ASC and the board of the clubs are always experienced
members, but chosen by the previous members of the board. This can lead to disagreement
among other members of the club.
The board of the
organisation and the clubs are responsible for mostly everything. They have to
nominate other members to organise important events, have to stay in contact
with sponsors and other clubs and of course keeping track of finance. A big
problem that often occurs is that members of the board spend too much at the
end of their term, which leaves the new board members with a financial
debt.
The structure in my
student organisation matches with the structure of fraternities. As a
first-year you have to do all the stupid work and have nothing to say. On the
other hand, I experienced my first-year as one of the best years, because
everything was new to me and I made best friends for life. The fact is that the
older you get, the more power you get.
This same sentence, the older you get, the more power you get, applies
also in the firm where I’ve worked for 2 years. I did some administrative work
at a law firm when I was in high school. This law firm has the structure of
‘partners’. To become a partner one of the requirements is that an employee has
to work at least 20 years in the company. Thus most of the partners are older
and have a lot of experience. The partners of the firm are the leaders of the firm
and make all the important decisions. Besides, they all earn the same
regardless the amount you work extra on top of the required 4 days a week.
In my opinion this
structure of this firm with partners is a very good choice for law firms. Most
of the time, the most experience and elderly employees have the most contacts,
which is important for a lawyer. However, the pay-structure of the partners can
lead to some disagreements among each other.
In the law firm where I worked –and general for nearly all law firms- a
big income for them are transaction costs. They charges consumers high
commissions with a high starting tariff. Furthermore, I experienced transaction
costs during my previous years in university. In Amsterdam there are a lot of
organisations that organise exam trainings before the exams start. They are
often expensive and I’ve learned that the most of the time it is kind of a
lottery. Instructors are sometimes very good, but most of the time they don’t
know where they are talking about. For these exam trainings you always have to
pay in advance and when the organisation delivers a bad instructor they often
don’t do refunds. Not only the costs of these trainings are high, also the
opportunity costs are important. The time that I’m at the exam training I could
also study for myself.
To conclude, my experiences of RSO’s are different than most of the
other students at UIUC. There are big differences between college life in
Amsterdam and here in Champaign/Urbana. Not only is there a big difference in
campus life, also the involvement with the university is much greater here than
in Amsterdam. During my work at the law firm I’ve experience a different
structure than I’ve experience at my student organisation, ASC. In my opinion
every organisation should find their own structure that works best for them. At
work, university and the student organisation, I’ve experience different transaction
costs. In my opinion those transaction costs are mostly occurring by intangible
products.
Here are a few different reactions to your piece.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Urbana-Champaign is definitely a college town which is centered around the university. Campuses in the U.S. that are in college towns have a distinctive feel to them. You are experiencing that now. There are also campuses in urban areas. The experience is different there. Some of the urban campuses are residential. Others, like our sister campus in Chicago, called UIC, are commuter campuses. Your experience at college in Amsterdam may be more like attending a commuter campus in the U.S. So I wonder, even in the Netherlands, how university life is outside of Amsterdam.
Second, when I was a student back in the 1970s at Cornell, there were fraternities, to be sure, but I don't recall anything like RSOs that we have here. I don't know how Cornell is like now, but I wonder if the RSO concept itself is relatively new. Many students list their RSO experience on their resumes when they apply for work, especially if they have become an officer in the RSO leadership team. I don't know how employers interpret that credential, but to the extent that it is needed to get a good interview, it shows how students are more programmed today than they were in my day.
Last, I didn't understand why you felt the need to give two different examples, including the law firm as well as your college experience, as the two didn't seem related to me at all. In future posts I would encourage you to go more into depth in whatever example you choose to present, but then stick with one example only, unless you can establish a strong connection between the examples.
First of all, thank you for your comment on my piece.
DeleteI have indeed chosen this university because of his campus feeling which I would get less in bigger cities such as Chicago and New York indeed. Those differences in campuses are common in the US, but in The Netherlands all universities are quite similar. I do study and live in Amsterdam but I grew up in the another 'big' city Utrecht, which also has a good university. University life there is the same as in Amsterdam and based on stories of friends, who study in Rotterdam, Delft, Leiden and Groningen, student life doesn't really differ. The Netherlands is such a small country that there is no need for campuses. From Utrecht to Amsterdam for example is only 18 minutes by train. It would be nice if universities would compete against each other in the field of sports.
Nowadays students try to fill their CV as much as possible with all their experiences. When you were a student, did students need anything else on their CV/resumes, with the exception of the graduation information, to have higher odds to get a job? I think it changed a lot, employers nowadays expect more than just a graduation paper. I think that employers interpret the RSO experiences differently dependent on the job, but you see that students often join a RSO or go abroad (same for me) because ''it looks good on your CV''.
I shouldn't have included my experiences about the law firm in the piece. I did it because I thought that I had to write about all my experiences and not only one: my college experiences. Thus, I wrote at the end about my work experiences because it was one of the examples to write about, but that made my piece look messy indeed. Now that I know that I can stick with one example and go into depth, I will do that next time. Thank for the feedback.