Hi everyone! My name is Rachael White, and I am a rising Senior at the University of Pittsburgh in the College of Business Administration. I am a Marketing major with an Accounting concentration and pursuing certificates in Leadership and Ethics, International Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Business Analytics. I am from Cranford, New Jersey and absolutely have fallen in love with travel. This is my fourth study abroad program at Pitt, and I would like to pursue a career in consulting that allows me to continue to travel the world and experience new cultures. I am also interested in entrepreneurship and have been working on starting up my own venture through different University-affiliated opportunities since the end of my freshman year.

I chose this Maymester program in Amsterdam for two main reasons. First off, I don’t know that much about Amsterdam or the Netherlands and what better way is there to learn about a new country and city than by simply going there an experiencing what it is like? I wanted to dive into another new city to see what it was like. In addition, the academic side of the program caught my interest. Though Sustainable Cities doesn’t seem like it has a direct tie to business and marketing, there is certainly a growing trend in business towards sustainability in all realms, including urban development. In my CPLE courses, I have already been able to learn about and work on projects surrounding food sustainability, food recovery, and food instability, so I thought urban sustainability would complement that work well. At the same time, I consider myself a pretty environmentally conscious person so this program was interesting to me on a personal level, as well.

Overall, I am really excited to immerse myself in another country’s culture and experience all Amsterdam has to offer from academic enhancements to great food. I am interested to learn more about how such an urban city is so sustainable and how the US can learn from the Netherlands in regards to policies, regulations, and even incentives within sustainable urban planning and development.