Internship experience in Amsterdam

Anastasia Kustouskaya

In this letter I would like to share my impression of the experience I’ve got during my internship in architecture in Amsterdam. I have been chosen by the small, but very nice firm Atelier van Wengerden for two months starting October 2018 till November 30th of same year.

Preparation to the internship

Before the start of the internship there were done some organized paperwork to fill in. I took about a week to get everything in order, book flight tickets and get ready to the journey. The one problem was still unsolved before the start of the period – accommodation.
Arrival and settling
As it was mentioned before the finding of suitable and budget place was extremely hard. It took about 2-3 weeks to find some, not permanent solution, so this issue I would suggest figuring out in much advance. Based on my experience the prices of a rom in Amsterdam for a single person vary from 600-800 euros per month, I got lucky as I had a friend to share a room with, but even in this case it cost around 500 each/per month.
So, for other things like transportation, settling in the flat it was done all very easiely, as people have been very helpful and polite.
Internship
My internship in van Wengerden, small architecture office in the east of Amsterdam, was valuable, resourceful, pleasant and creative for me. More specific about each point, so firstly the job which I was participating was according my profession I studied for. I had been given tasks in professional drawing in 2D, creative thinking on concepts solution, 3D modelling and hand modelling, etc. Secondly the office itself was creating a very good environment for the individual and common work. with zoning and good equipment, it has got a very well-organized space. Thirdly as I have mentioned the team, I worked with was quite small, but as people were very helpful, open-minded, communicative, good mentors and just generally very friendly people it was easy to join it and do not feel like a stranger.
And last but not the least it was absolutely great experience in particularly architecture as the projects was all done with using of creative thinking, was always interesting to work on and was needed to be developed and finalized in the reasonable time. Also, as I worked, I got a lot of notes on how the small office is running, how the management is organized, it was a great part I was particularity thankful with.

The end of the internship and the way back
So before finalizing my work in the place, I have asked for Traineeship Certificate, very my boss and mentor could evaluate my work done at his firm and point out my qualities as an architect. So, after that was done it ended just to gather the luggage and fly. I hoped that nothing was forgotten, but still small things slipped out, so better always have checklist of things to do before leaving.

General impression on the city, people, places, language so on

Amsterdam will always stay in my memory as the most beautiful, amazing architecture, stunning canals, welcoming people, good food [place! I had gained friends and found that there are so many nice and sociable people there, as there are so many nationalities gathered in this unordinary city. I got in very different kinds of situations and find my way of solving it myself. Also, the big place in life in this city is that it is occupied by tourists every day 24 hours, so there was a problem first to find places more of local value, but later it got no problem and made it even more interesting. Language was also the thing which really [preleased me as all the people surrounding me had good level of English and I could communicate freely without any language barrier. So, I could talk more and more about it as it was unforgettable experience so will just leave this letter and let the rest be saved with me.

Thanks a lot for the ERASMUS + organization for this unbelievable opportunity to grow and learn, so will be up to go for more and more places and internships like that.

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