Summer in Amsterdam

After I committed to studying abroad in Amsterdam, I felt equally apprehensive and excited. I am not someone who travels often – indeed, this would be my first time leaving the US – and I am the sort of person who likes to plan everything, to minimize as much unpredictability and risk. Yet travel, by its nature, is inherently unpredictable. Using the street view feature on Google Maps or obsessively studying the native language of your destination may give you a superficial idea of the landscape or its people, but those simply cannot compare to the experience of being in a place and interacting with its inhabitants. Yet on the other hand, the opportunity to live and study in another country, another continent, even, was too much to pass up on, too intriguing of an opportunity even for someone as risk-averse as I often am to let slip by. So, for once in my life, I leapt into the abyss of uncertainty in the hopes that the rewards on the other side would have been worth it.

When I landed in Amsterdam, I came off a red-eye flight bright-eyed and full of hope. I left the US with apprehension, but I landed in the Netherlands determined to make this experience as successful as it could be. I pushed through my jetlag to network with people, and by sheer luck and happenstance, by the end of that first day on the ground, I had already bonded with several colleagues that were in the same course that I was taking, Neurodegenerative Diseases: Foundation, Tools and Perspectives, at Vrije Universiteit. While we all came from different places and held a disparate variety of aspirations for the future, we were united in our common interest in non-communicable diseases and our complete confusion over how to navigate Amsterdam, and we were determined to tackle them together. Together, we navigated both our course and the Amsterdam metro system, and we became reasonably proficient with both.

The course itself was deeply rewarding. As someone who had little background on neuropathology coming into the course, I felt like I was able to learn so much from the lectures that we had from a variety of experts in their field, and being able to look under a scanning electron microscope at slides of patients exhibiting various pathologies for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or presenting a novel research proposal for a repurposed drug for Alzheimer’s were unforgettable moments. Yet experiencing both the course and the country with my new friends made the experience that much more rewarding and far less daunting. We were able to bond over studying and debating the ethics of various experimental designs, over dinners at cafes in the Grachtengordel and visits to museums and national parks in the Netherlands. When the program ended two weeks later, I felt that I had learned so much about neuropathology, but mostly, I felt that I had made the right decision by coming to the Netherlands. There were some awkward moments, to be sure, like when I tried speaking in the Dutch that I had learned only to receive a response in English (as it turns out, Duolingo did me no favors when it came to getting the right accent) or getting hopelessly lost looking for a supermarket.

Yet I had gained so much from the experience that these moments were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I made some of my dearest and closest friends, people that I hope will be in my life for a long time. I learned so much more about a subject that I had been long interested in and came back to the US ready to pursue research projects inspired by what I had learned. Most of all, though, I learned that taking risks isn’t always a bad thing, and I grew far more comfortable with the idea of trying new things outside of my comfort zone, even if it wasn’t the most prudent or predictable thing. I encourage everybody who can to go abroad and do what I did if they have the chance.

Alexander Alvarado, CEA Amsterdam, Netherlands – Interdisciplinary Studies, Summer 2022