Next stop - The Netherlands!

Internship experience in Almere, Netherlands. 

Anastasia Lupach

The next internship and life experience comes from The Netherlands, Anastasia Lupach, a student from Faculty of Architecture had a great experience in Almere at 70F Architecture office, “ I’ve been working there for 4 months. I’ve found the office among others in the list of companies on VGTU website. An important part of internship request was portfolio, I collected all my projects that were done during my 4 years of study, and presented them nicely. A couple of days later I’ve got accepted !”
Anastasias' preparation for the internship was easy and smooth ’’thanks to International Relations Office, where all information regarding legal procedure was given accurately, all papers were signed and transferred within a short period of time.” The only challenging part for Anastasia was to find an accommodation.”I’ve been searching for it on some websites like www.huurexpert.nl/, but it wasn’t of much help, since the demand, as well as prices,  were very high. The only option I found was on housinganywhere.com - a single room in a shared flat, for 400 euros a month. There are a lot of cases in Almere and Netherlands in general, when owners of flats require a “deposit”, and then people got scammed, so I highly recommend to be very careful while searching for accommodation online.” - warn Anastasia.

Lets hear some more details from Anastasia about the country and internship!


About Almere

The city of Almere is quite small, located within 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam. It is modern, the city was constructed in the 70’s-80’s, so it does not have any historical center as Amsterdam does, and it mostly consists of residential districts. For those who are planning to go there, I would like to suggest to be aware of Stedenwijk area, I do not recommend to rent any accommodation there, since it may be quite dangerous for your stay. 

The work experience

The office of 70F Architecture is located in the central part of the city, and the office very kindly provided us with bicycles, so we could easily go to work in a traditional Dutch way. The company is rather small, and it affected relationships between employees in a good way, the atmosphere is very friendly, relaxed, supportive. The team was very open-minded, the boss was helpful, kind and with a good sense of humor. In other words, after those 4 months everyone became good friends.

The projects I took part in were made inside a team of other interns, under a supervision of our boss. We took part in a number of projects, including competition ones. I’ve learned a lot about how the work process is organized, how to collaborate with other people, I’ve gained skills in communication and problem solving. Speaking about technical tasks, I was involved in a process of concept creation, idea development as well as preparation of technical and architectural drawings. I am very grateful for this experience and for such a great team in particular.

Last days in Almera

During the last weeks of internship, it was important to take care of the Traineeship Certificate, to get my work evaluated and the paper signed. In this certificate strong and weak points are highlighted, it helps to understand what can be improved in the future. The internship was completed with a very warm Christmas/Goodbye party. So, after that the only thing left was to prepare the luggage and fly back home.

Anastasia Lupach encourage students to take part in ERASMUS+ Internship Program, “since the experience you get is definitely worth it!"