By Ardilah Kamaruzzaman, BA International Business Management
Hey everyone! My name is Ardilah and I’m studying International Business Management at the University of Sheffield with a year at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).
I chose to study at UvA as I fell in love with Amsterdam when I first came to visit during Christmas break last year. It is such a vibrant city! Not only that, but UvA is also one of the most reputable universities in the world.
Before I embarked on this new journey, I had been contacting GG (who did her exchange at UvA last year) to ease some of my nervousness. I asked her a lot of questions so that I knew what to expect when I arrived. I found that it helped me when I talked to GG, so if anyone has any questions about UvA or Erasmus in general, I would be more than happy to help!
I am lucky that my accommodation is only seven minutes away from the business school by bike. I have 12 other flatmates and they are a great bunch of people. We went to watch a soccer match
(Ajax vs. Vitesse), have cultural dinners and do a whole lot of other stuff together that it feels like we’re a big family now, which is nice since you’re away from home and can get homesick at times.
So far, it has been a hectic two months for me. The education system here is so different from Sheffield’s. One semester is divided into three blocks, which also means you have three exam periods in a semester. Block one and two usually last about seven weeks and block three lasts four weeks. It is kind of intense here and it took me quite a while to adapt to the system and the workload I was given (I hope I’m not scaring you!), but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be fine.
So for those of you who are thinking of doing Erasmus, you should totally consider it as, not only will it look good on your CV, but you can expect to discover new things about yourself, have lot of fun and meet new people which will help you broaden your horizons!