Study Abroad

Text on screen: Study Abroad in the Netherlands

[Students in front of Webster Leiden Campus with their bicycles]

Text on screen: Natalie, University of California Berkely

Natalie: When you come into Leiden, one of the first things you see on the walk over here is like if you turn left, you see the windmill, which is really cool to see. Leiden is a super sweet town. It's definitely a great place to stay for study abroad because I feel like it's very intimate compared to maybe some of the bigger cities like Amsterdam. But it's still like pretty central so you can still visit like Amsterdam and The Hague and it's just really convenient and a really nice place to live in.

[Photo of the Leiden windmill, and aerial shots of Webster Leiden Campus, and the Leiden canals and Webster Leiden flag flying in the wind]

Text on Screen: Kennadi, Webster University, St Louis

Kennadi: I like Leiden way more than any city I visited in the Netherlands, and including Paris. And it's so calming and peaceful. It has all the unique qualities of being abroad without the overwhelming of other people like the coffee shops, the food. It's so good here.

[Footage of Leiden’s canal side terraces, photo of the Webster Leiden dorm building and surrounding buildings on the Boommarkt canal]

Text on Screen: Madison, Webster University, St Louis

Madison: It's very peaceful. Everyone keeps themselves and if you ever need help, you can obviously ask, but I really like it here.

Natalie: The dorm is really close to campus, so that's super nice. And it's like 10 minutes from the train station. And then my dorm at least has a nice view of the canal, so I can see the windmill and I can see like, you know, the bridge and the boats, which is really nice.

[Photo of dorm building and footage of the dorm room canal views]

Madison: We had more freedom living alone. And the living center - I love it. There's a shopping strip, which is so convenient. The grocery store is really walkable and all of the stuff is very close that you need.

Text on Screen: Zoë, Webster University, St Louis

Zoë : Class trips, I mean, you just wake up, get ready, and then you meet with your group and then you get on the train and you get to see all these cool things. But I loved public transportation. I don't know how I'm going to go back now to driving everywhere. But yeah, transportation's really easy. I liked having a group of people I was so close with because our class was so small that we just kind of like hung out all the time. So we did so many trips both in class and out of class all together. So that was really great.

[Footage of Amsterdam train station, of Metro in Amsterdam, class photo of students and professor eating sandwiches]

Text on screen: Nya, Webster University, St Louis

Nya: We learned a lot about circular economy and one thing that stood out to me though from all of the places was that they're really good at reusing resources and minimizing waste and stuff like that, which I think is really cool.

[Photo of Blue City Rotterdam]

Kennadi: Seeing the Leiden Bioscience Park and the Blue City Rotterdam were also very cool because they mostly work with startups. So seeing people give other people that are starting something up a helping hand was kind of cool because in America it's kind of not like that. Your startup, you're on your own until you get to where you're functioning more.

[Class trip photo selfie from the BlueCity Rotterdam visit]

Natalie: We visited the Amsterdam UMC, the University Medical Center, and then we also visited Infinite Acres. It's a vertical agriculture company. It was cool to, get to see the plants and how they're growing them. And then we got to taste them as well, which is really cool.

[Class trip photos from UMC and Infinite Acres]

For the cities throughout the Netherlands, I think my favorite has been Leiden. I think we just really enjoyed our time here. We've had a lot of fun exploring all the different restaurants and going on the canals. We did a boat tour, which was really fun.

[Video of boating through the Leiden canals]

Zoë: I think the most important thing I learned about myself is that you can make anywhere feel like home just by calling it home. I was really worried I'd get super homesick, but I just I called home every day

[Class trip photo selfie]

Zoë: and I spent so much time out of the dorm room trying to soak in as much as I can, and I think that made a huge difference because I just felt like I was home while I was here.

[Webster Leiden students cycling through the city]

Kennadi: And I'm the first one in my family to leave the country. So it's like, OK, I did it. I had a great experience. I've been to Paris now. Most people in my family cannot say that. So it's kind of cool to be like, yeah, I went to the Netherlands. I went to Paris. I did all this, and I have so much to show for it. So it's really fun.

[Video shots of Paris and Amsterdmam]

Nya: Webster is known for its Study Abroad. And I've always wanted to study abroad because I love traveling.

[Clips of Webster students in from of Webster Leiden Campus building]

Nya: I didn't think I was going to be able to study abroad because being a chemistry and biology major, it's hard to fit that into your schedule. So when Dr. Preuss told me about the opportunity, I was so excited because I was like, ‘Oh, I'm finally going to be able to do this.’

[Photo of classroom activity using chemistry kits]

Zoë: This was my first time ever leaving the country. And so I was really nervous, and I was procrastinating packing, but I was always thinking about the trip, but it was just because I was so excited. And then really the second I stepped on the airplane, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I did it. I'm doing it.’ And it was awesome.

[Class group photo in front of canal]

Kennadi: And I think learning about other places and getting out of your bubble and out of your comfort zone, best thing I could possibly do. Do it.

Text on screen: www.webster.nl/study-abroad