Naar het buitenland: yeaaaaaahh
Everybody just listen carefully: I am going to the Netherlands next August, spend 3 weeks studying Haskell intensively, funded by the Dutch government.
Exactly. That’s what you just read, it’s not April Fools’, it’s The Utrecht Summer School 2011
To make a long story short: last February I filled an application to take part in the Utrecht Summer School in Computer Science, but told nobody except my parents and my thesis advisor - following the principle of “keep your wishes to yourself”. Wrote everything I needed, mailed stuff to the Netherlands, managed financial issues, everything in secrecy (so do I think). Last Friday I received great news: I was accepted to the Utrecht Summer School 2011, and was granted a full scholarship covering all costs of the course!!
What will (probably) happen from now on? Around 10-15th of August I will fly to Amsterdam and then take a train (thanks Nederlandse Spoorwegen :]) to Utrecht. From the 15th to the 27th of August I will have 4 hours per day of intensive Haskell classes, followed by group work on projects.
For the “not so nerdy” part: there will be around 1500 students from all over the world in Utrecht, studying all academic disciplines. Moreover, Utrecht is a pretty sunny city in the summer, full of canals. So yeah, there will be drinking on pubs, partying on the streets, travelling to Amsterdam, going to dutch beaches, cycling around seeing dutch dykes, windmills, tulips and all that kind of boring stuff… :P Take a look:
Utrecht Summer School 2011 from Utrecht Summer School on Vimeo.
And… last but not least, what did I need to get this?
- Curriculum Vitae
- Recent transcript of records with reasonably good grades
- Letter of motivation
- Two letters of recommendation from professors of my Faculty
- Some background in the subject (not really much)
- Most importantly: a great passion for Haskell, functional programming and Computer Science as a whole
So that’s it for now. I hope to write several other posts describing the details of the wonderful experience these three weeks will surely be! :D