I studied abroad at UM Maastricht in spring 2026, and I wish I never had to leave. Maastricht Netherlands is a municipality within the Netherlands and I originally chose this location based on the country of the Netherlands itself as it was my number one option from the day, I knew I wanted to study abroad. The country of the Netherlands seemed very beautiful, it seemed to have nature included in daily aspects, and the Netherlands seemed like a place where people could be themselves and be weird.
When I arrived, that is exactly what I experienced. I was immersed within the university and country from the first day that I arrived. The university itself is spread out through this small but beautiful city, and is integrated with history, art, and nature across the whole campus. Which means that the city itself was also immersed and full of art, history, nature, culture, and a lively lifestyle. I learned a lot about Dutch culture, but studying abroad here also allowed me to continuously learn about at least 13 other cultures. It allowed me to be immersed within different language, and it allowed me to professionally and personally develop on every corner that I turned. UM was designed in the Dutch Way, and as accommodating for all cultures. The university had a message to understand and educate all and for me that applies to my day-to-day as I am a fourth year student about to graduate and become a teacher. As a teacher, it is important to understand all of my students, individualities and characteristics that set them apart or together within the students around them. A part of this requires to have minimal biases, which is how you create a positive environment within the classroom.
I believe that the courses I took here enabled me to learn more about the psychology of learning and being around others. I took social psychology. Esther Slits was hands-down the best professor I had within the university, this course connected to previous courses I had taken within child development. Her course stuck with me the most and I have been able to apply what I learned in her class to my current classrooms. So far I have been in the four different classrooms and since coming home, I have been in one. So I am able to see the different mechanisms of application from before I learned more in her class compared to after I gained a full understanding of connections within social psychology. I had many ah ha moments within this class that have led me to encourage the education department within my university to encourage our studying educators to study abroad to gain a wider knowledge, and understanding of our classroom mechanisms, as well as as the students themselves.
I found that studying in a university that required English within all courses was infatuating as almost every student and each tutorial or lecture spoke a different language. Which led me to gain a water understanding about how students feel within the classroom in elementary, middle, or high school, who don’t speak the same language as everyone else, and I learned how my students feel when they don’t understand what is being said because of a language barrier, and how to incorporate those student students into the classroom environment.
All of my professors made it apparent that everyone could understand any language being spoken during instruction, however, when we had downtime or group work, everyone around me would speak in their own language. Or in Dutch. Which I definitely loved and would never prevent, I learned Dutch for a few months before attending, but in reality I still could not speak full sentences. My professors would always chime me in and ask the students around us in free time to speak in English, because even if a student is not involved in a conversation with a language, they don’t speak. It is still important that that student is not left out or feels unseen, or unheard. And that is my largest Takeaway within my study abroad, and I’m so thankful that I was able to continue and travel throughout my experience as the Netherlands country is in the middle of the European continent itself. I believe that I will encourage more educators to travel abroad and that I would always recommend them to go to Maastricht Netherlands to visit, because living there is not for everybody. But it was for me, I miss it every single day, and I cannot stop thinking about it. The nature, the people, the jokes, and the environment of the country has a whole. It’s stuck to me and I wish I could say that a part of me is Netherlandish but I can’t. One day I plan on coming back, as it truly was an impeccable lifetime experience, that you can’t only experience once.
