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I discovered that Maastricht is a beautiful city located on a river that is full of boutiques, chocolate shops, and lively restaurants.
Ella Cariello, CES Maastricht (Fall 2024)
What was your favorite memory from your study away experience?
My favorite memory in Maastricht was going ice skating on the first day that the Maastricht Christmas Market was open! But, outside of the Netherlands, I most enjoyed exploring the city of Budapest, which was full of golden streets and extraordinary architecture.
What was your favorite class excursion?
My Dutch Art History class took a field trip to The Hague where we visited two different art museums:
- Panorama Mesdag - a museum that features a 19th-century cylindrical panorama painting that fully immerses you in the landscape of the beach just beyond The Hague during the late 1800s.
- Museum Mauritshuis - this museum was super cool because we got to see a lot of the famous Dutch paintings we had been studying in person; then, my professor would go to a random painting that we had never seen before, and he would ask us all different types of questions about the painting; it was fascinating to see how much we had learned and were able to apply our knowledge of Dutch art history to an arbitrary painting.
Afterward, my professor took us out for drinks (which is, apparently, commonplace in the Netherlands).
In addition to field trips that are individual to the classes that you choose to take, the program also brought us on three bigger trips:
- A five-day trip to Berlin,
- A weekend in Paris, and
- A Dutch day trip to Delft and Kinderdijk.
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Where were your favorite places in Maastricht?
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The workload at Maastricht University isn’t quite as intense as at Duke, so I had quite a bit of time on my hands to meander through the city and find a lot of lovely places to eat, study, and indulge. That list is as follows:
Piece of Cake – a cute British tea room that I found to be the perfect study spot; you can get a cup or pot of tea and they’ll let you sit there all day and study; they also have gorgeous pastries and a light menu.
Bakkerij Paulissen – the best place to grab a Dutch pastry; my favorite one is called Kruimelvlaai, which is basically a mini vanilla custard pie with crumble topping.
KOFFIE – the coolest coffee shop in the city with a super laid-back vibe; really good hot drinks and modern brunch food, like a savory yogurt bowl with roasted tomatoes and crispy chickpeas (MY FAV).
Levantini – vegetarian Israeli food crafted by a man from Tel Aviv who found himself living in cities all over the world before settling in Maastricht; his food made me feel right at home as I eat food from the Yalla food truck many times a week at Duke.
DARQ – THE BEST HOT CHOCOLATE OF MY LIFE, need I say more?
Ice Skating at the Maastricht Christmas Market
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The River Mass that runs throught the center of Maastracht
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Trip to Utrecht to obtain Dutch Residence Permits
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Basiliek van Sint Servaas at golden hour
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Beach at Dutch city Leiden, in a town called Katwijk aan Zee
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Why did you decide to do CES Maastricht?
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When choosing a study abroad program, I found that many Duke neuroscience majors decided to study in Copenhagen, as it has a robust neuroscience program. However, I wasn’t super interested in studying abroad with a ton of other Duke students. I wanted to meet new people and really try to immerse myself in the culture of the city I was going to be in. So, I continued my search for other neuroscience programs, and I found that Maastricht University has a study abroad program where you can choose your discipline and one of them was Psychology and Neuroscience in Europe.
I also found that I would be able to take classes in English, which was important because I knew no Dutch before stepping foot in the Netherlands (other than my 200 days of Duolingo of course!). In this program, I was able to still get to learn a new language while not having the pressure of having to take neuroscience courses in that language. And on top of that, Dutch is a pretty fun language to learn. It is oddly similar, yet complete different from English.
And if all of this wasn’t enough, I discovered that Maastricht is a beautiful city located on a river that is full of boutiques, chocolate shops, and lively restaurants.
As someone who knew they wanted to travel a lot going into my semester abroad, I appreciated that I didn’t have class on either Monday or Friday (or both, like I had for the second half of the semester) so that I had more time to travel.
What advice do you have for other students considering CES Maastricht?
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When picking a destination to study abroad, I think that it is really important for you to consider what you want to get out of your study abroad experience. Do you want to immerse yourself in the culture of your host city? Do you want to work on your foreign language skills? Do you want to be surrounded by beautiful architecture, vibrant nature, or a bustling city? And how much do you want to travel?
For me, it was super important that I had the opportunity to travel to vibrant cities and try lots of different cuisines. I’m also a lover of architecture and art museums, so I knew that I wanted to be in a pretty city that had art museums and galleries for me to peruse. Maastricht turned out to be the perfect city to study in.
It’s an international city with a ton of different cuisines to try. It’s very quaint and homey while being beautiful and scenic. It is also easily navigable, walkable, and bikeable. And it has some nice art and interesting churches.
As someone who wants to travel a lot, the thing that makes Maastricht one of the best cities to study abroad in, actually, is that there is not a ton going on in the city. So, when I left for the weekend to see another city, I didn’t feel like I was missing out. And then when I returned to Maastricht to take my classes during the week, it was like coming home to my little serene and charming neighborhood.