Student review [#27418] for Economics and Business Economics
at University of Amsterdam - UvA

The program is good for people who want to get deep into economic theory and learn how it works even to a quantitative level. It is a difficult program to do well in part because of how quantitatively demanding it is (math1/econometrics will make you suffer), but also because in my opinion there is such little class/professor time that you will certainly find it difficult to prepare for your final exams – the profs are great for the most part but it feels like I only paid for their trial versions. Most exams in this course feel like you are never prepared for them, always throwing ridiculous questions way outside the scope of the material, it’s almost impossible to get an 8.5-10. About 1/3 of my class relied on outside sources (exam prep companies) to actually get decent grades in our course. If you tried to pass Econometrics just by going to all the lectures and tutorials, you can expect a 2-3/10 without the use of these companies. It’s expensive and a little silly from a top uni in my opinion. Also if you are from Italy, Greece, Portugal, or Spain get ready to be blamed for the financial crisis… so much explicit material is made out to slander these countries, especially in the IMF module. Also if you are an international student, don’t expect to make friends with the Dutch people in the course, they mostly stick to their own groups and hardly want to socialize in English in my experience. That said, the international body is great and very inviting, again just my exp. The course is cheap which is a plus but accommodation in Amsterdam is mega expensive, and so are the costs of living. Overall the course is thought-provoking and challenging which is fantastic but it just feels so held back by its poor structure, sparse teaching and ridiculous self-study expectations (you must remember every word of every lecture verbatim for a 8-9), and pretty poor international experience.