Dear YOUvA Readers, As you have probably noticed, our website has been inactive for a long time now. After internal reshuffling of the board, YOUvA Today found itself on new, slightly shaky, ground. Starting a news outlet has many challenges and takes an enormous time commitment, which only sometimes matches with busy, fast-moving lives. In...
Inflation. It’s affecting the prices of almost everything, especially groceries and energy prices. Menstrual products were already considered to be expensive 3 years ago, but with inflation, the prices have spiked even more. With an increasing number of people unable to afford menstrual products, it is no surprise that some countries have taken this issue up. Following this, even some universities have decided to make period products free. Universities in Utrecht, Tilburg, Radboud, Twente and other cities have made the decision to start offering free period products.
At the UvA, there is quite a significant population of Polish students. With our country historically scarred and politically divided – relationships, friendships, even acquaintanceships – all can turn sour or be broken within seconds if political and societal values don’t align. With exponentially increasing political turmoil and dissatisfaction with the government and our appearance on the world stage, it may seem impossible for everyone to, even for a moment, call a truce and put our proverbial weapons down.
The ‘Universitaire sport centrum’, USC for short, broadened its martial arts offer! This year, USC opened a boxing school for all kinds of people who are passionate or eager to learn boxing and kickboxing.
The project started this October as a result of a collaboration between USC and the Amsterdam Municipality, which reached an agreement to lend space for 8 years to the gym, with the goal to create a community hall for youth.
The ‘Universitaire sport centrum’, USC for short, broadened its martial arts offer! This year, USC opened a boxing school for all kinds of people who are passionate or eager to learn boxing and kickboxing.
The project started this October as a result of a collaboration between USC and the Amsterdam Municipality, which reached an agreement to lend space for 8 years to the gym, with the goal to create a community hall for youth.
It was just a regular Friday. Slumped over my statistics readings for next week, I picked up my phone, yearning for a five-minute break from the SPSS landscape that had been unfolding for over an hour in front of my eyes. Suddenly, a notification appeared on my phone – it was from a close friend of mine, sending me some sort of photo.
“I was scrolling through our bachelor’s group chat and look – it’s you!”
The term “monolith” really suits UVA’s Roeterseiland campus: home to three different faculties, nearly 20,000 students and sitting on almost 50.000 square meters, nothing about Roeters- or Rec as it's more commonly known- can be described as small. Large and ever-expanding the area has grown into the UvA’s main campus. Is this something to be celebrated, however? Or has the sheer size, exacerbated by the amount of funds, led to a loss of community amongst students at the rec campus?
Only 5% of students and 6% of staff members at the UvA have a non-western background, and only 26% of professors are women. All of this in a university that prides itself on diversity and being internationally oriented. It’s safe to say things need to start changing for the better. Youvatoday Spoke to Ibrahim Kamara, a black student in a predominately white course who’s been actively involved in opening the conversation, so we could get his opinion on how the university can improve its diversity for the better.
Connie Walden, a first-year Literary and Cultural Analysis student at the UvA, has done what many other students have not even considered attempting. She has undertaken the task of organizing an open mic event! So, I sat down with Connie to talk about herself and the event she is organizing – “Transrijk” – at Vrankrijk which takes place on November 9th.
Ever had the feeling university is pushing you into becoming a researcher? For some, this sounds like a dream, but for others, the exact opposite. Rosalie Visser, a Business Administration student at the UvA, feels her future isn’t in academia, but in the music industry. She organized an event where like-minded students can meet people from the music industry.