We just left Amsterdam and I am writing this on the train to Paris. These last two weeks have been crazy and I don’t think I’ve ever been this sleep deprived even during the school year. But we had a lot of fun and went to so many places, so I feel my time here was well spent. If this blog is a bit blunt or dry, it’s probably a combination of my lack of rest and learning from the straightforwardness of Dutch locals.
When we were organized into our teams for the design sprint at the University of Amsterdam Business School, I was immediately worried. Out of the four UVA students, only one brought a laptop and one student didn’t even show up. Throughout the four classes we participated in with them, it would only get worse until eventually only one person showed up with none of them doing their interviews. To be honest, I didn’t learn very much interacting with the UVA students, but I did learn a lot from doing interviews with locals. I struggle to communicate and talk, even with close friends, so I was terrified when told that we were required to interview strangers to collect data. However, this process has taught me to be more shameless and more indifferent to rejection. It also gave me a greater appreciation for people who are willing to go out of their way to help strange people asking questions they don’t necessarily want to answer.
Our iSEED group gathered to do activities at the start of the day that challenged us to notice, sense, and experiment. My least favorite activity by far was finding a stranger, asking for directions, asking them to draw a map for me, and asking them for their phone number if I got lost. It’s so awkward and doesn’t make sense, but that might be the point, to put us out of our comfort zone. But Google Maps is a thing, so some of us got weird looks when asking for directions and a map. Asking for phone numbers is a different beast altogether. These activities did allow me to learn more about the aforementioned skills. In terms of noticing, I have had trouble zooming in all of my life. I like to look at the big picture and think about problems and characteristics that apply to the majority of people. A lot of detail can be lost if not considering individuals, which was demonstrated to me when all of the people we interviewed had different experiences from the general trends we gathered online. For sensing, I have trouble synthesizing data from individuals and data gathered from larger groups to create new understandings or pinpoint problems. With general trends and our data from interviews contradicting, we tried to craft a problem statement that ended up being very generic. When experimenting, I struggle to build a prototype for something that is intangible. It’s very difficult to prototype when your solution isn’t something that is easily visualized, but instead experienced or explained.
By the end of our design sprint with UVA, my partner and I were still left wondering if our problem was even a problem. Given the option to start over, I would completely uproot the problem we were given, physical health for remote workers. For starters, physical health is often self-motivated and more closely linked to personal choices rather than influence from work. Furthermore, office workers have trouble with exercise and eating healthily just like remote workers, perhaps even more, since office workers have to spend more time commuting and thus wake up earlier and get home later. The problem we were asked to address was faulty from the start.
Outside of school, Amsterdam was a lot of fun and we did a lot together as a group. We went to museums, restaurants, clubs, and so many more places. My favorite place was Jazz Café Alto, where a local band plays for the entire night and people sit, chill, talk, and drink together. This place was recommended to me by a weirdo that showed up when I was doing my people watching assignment. Some of the best places we went to were recommended by locals, so make sure to ask locals for recommendations on places to eat and hang out. I never would have even tried to before this course, but being forced to converse with random people throughout these last two weeks has made it less intimidating. Albert Heijn, a Dutch supermarket chain, definitely carried our time abroad. The food there is cheap and convenient, making it perfect for breakfast or anytime we got too lazy to find a place to eat. The problem with finding a place to eat is that we have 9 people, so it’s very difficult to get anywhere without a reservation. By the end of these two weeks, a lot of us have split up for meals. Another problem is that Amsterdam seems to be made for tourists, and it’s very difficult to find good food spots. Make sure to check reviews before eating anywhere. It’s a good idea to get out of Central, and on trips to other cities, make sure to appreciate the much better food options.
My favorite part of this trip so far has definitely been my classmates. They are all hilarious and fun to hang out with. For the iSEED students next year, my advice to you is that sleep is important, but not necessary… but still take care of yourselves lol. I almost fell asleep in the club yesterday due to a lack of sleep. I’m not a party person and I actually need 10 hours of sleep a day to function normally, but I can sleep in the future and there’s no guarantee that I can hang out with these people again abroad in the future. Make sure to rest (don’t hurt yourselves), but realize that two weeks isn’t a lot of time to hang out with these people in such a setting. At least, we aren’t too sick of each other yet.
