Details

• Netherlands
• MASIMC-17
• Graduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

Get familiar with the city and other destinations you want to visit during your exchange, it will definitely change once you arrived but having an idea beforehand is very helpful. Once you are on exchange time flies and knowing what you want to do/see makes your life a lot easier escpecially alongside the courses you have to do. In regards to traveling, there are a lot of flights to Amsterdam, but booking early definetly will safe you some money. Once arrived in Amsterdam you can take a train directly to Rotterdam Central and then take public transport or an UBER to your accommodation.

2. Accommodation

START EARLY!!! It is really hard to get an accommodation, escpecially a private one. Look for WhatsApp or Facebook Groups where students sublet their apartments. Be aware of scams, fortunately has not happened to me but I heard some stories of other students. What I did to prevent a potential scam was simply having a FaceTime call in addition to pictures that where sent to me. With that I could see if the apartment really existied and it was also good to talk to the other student to get some more tips for staying and living in Rotterdam. I lived next to Kralingse Plas, really nice and safe area. Was only 12min to Uni by bike and about 20-25min to the city center by bike. Avoid living south of the river, seems to be a bit worse that area and you need a lot longer anywhere you want to go

3. Academic life at host university

Large campus similar to WU campus, academic culture also similar to WU, courses where not super packed but still up to 30 students in a lecture, some courses had exams some did not, a lot of group work but was nice to get to know some dutch guys and "leave" the exchange bubble a bit. You can find places to study all over the campus not only in the library, some buildings also have external monitors which you can use, this was escpecially nice when working on Ppts and Excels. I took Master's courses in Entrepreneurship and Innovation which were all very interseting. Especially, Validation & Pivoting as well as Startup & Growth. I also had one accounting/valuation course (Reporting, Analysis & Valuation). This was more demanding compared to the Innovation courses but if you want to learn some hard skills I can definitely recommend this course.

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transport is very good, but you will do everything by bike anyways. There is this app called "Swapfiets" where you can rent a bike for the months you are staying (subscription based). This was really convenient because I did not have to buy a used bike from some private person and additionally in the subscription there was also a protection for theft and if anything broke on the bike I could just get a replacement. Rotterdam is a safe city, but of course there are always exceptions and you can be in the wrong place to the wrong time. Use your gut feeling if anything feels off. But overall I did not experince any unsafe situation. There are a lot of nice places where you can have a good time with your fellow students. I would definitely recommend going to the "old harbor" (oude haven) during the day for some drinks in the sun and for the night "Witte de Withstraat". On this street there are a lot of bars and you will find always a bar/club to have a good evening/night. In regards to events, the Netherlands are definitely a place for some very nice music events (especially House & Techno). During my stay, there was the "AMF" (Amsterdam Music Festival), which was phenomenal and I can recommend going to!

6. Testimonial

Rotterdam was a very nice city to live in and I had a good time studying at RSM. Get to know your fellow exchangies early on and with them your whole exchange experience will get even better, because in the end it is all about the people and the memories you make together as well as the friendships that result from this.