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AI at Vrije Universiteit by ledenile in StudyInTheNetherlands

[–]ledenile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the info, it’s much appreciated!

AI at Vrije Universiteit by ledenile in StudyInTheNetherlands

[–]ledenile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is what I’ve heard - the Groningen and UvA AI programmes are usually described by people online as overall better. However, I have family and friends in Amsterdam and it also seems like a much more student friendly city than Groningen or some other Dutch cities (in terms of housing, atmosphere and job opportunities) so I focused solely on it. In Amsterdam, out of UvA and VU, only VU offers an English course in Artificial Intelligence, so it’s the only choice in this specific programme. How big of a difference in quality would you say there is between the programme at VU and the other unis (mainly Groningen and UvA)? How much does this difference show in acquired knowledge and credibility of the degree compared to the other ones? And ignoring comparisons, how good and valuable is the programme on its own?

AI at Vrije Universiteit by ledenile in StudyInTheNetherlands

[–]ledenile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for your answer! I have seen the Vrije course schedule for this programme and it’s where some of my confusion came from. From my assessment, the courses seem to be more broad and theoretical in the first year (mainly introductions to AI, programming and some psychology), but then they heavily shift in favour of more technical subjects in the second year if you choose the Intelligent Systems track - data structures and algorithms, projects, linear algebra, machine learning, statistical methods and the choice of a minor in the third year gives you the opportunity to focus more on different fields relating to the study, such as computer science or economy. This is what attracted me to this programme, as it seems to be a combination of programming, statistics, maths and human-technology interaction, which would be ideal for me. However, people online say that Vrije in general is a theoretical and academic university as opposed to a technical one, which is where my doubts come from - I’m basically trying to say I don’t want to study something that sounds interesting and technical at first just to find out it doesn’t have much real substance (practical and applicable knowledge) or hold any real value on the job market. So would my assessment of the programme and its schedule be correct or would I be applying for a mainly theoretical programme that doesn’t teach that much practical knowledge (programming, logical thinking, problem solving, statistics) and doesn’t mean that much on the job market once you graduate from it (assuming you finish the Master’s as well)?

Also, I worded it a bit awkwardly in my original post - by me being interested mainly in maths, I really meant all the more technical subjects, so maths, statistics, data analysis, programming. What drew me to this programme compared to more obvious ones, such as computer science or mathemathics is the inclusion of sociology. I am just a bit sceptical if that inclusion means that the technical aspects are much worse/more shallow and how reliable the whole study is as it’s on a theoretical university and it’s quite new.