IHS, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam - Rotterdam

Felix Crul

Let me provide my review for IHS here. I studied here sometime ago and my experience was, to say the least, underwhelming. Yes, it’s true that the field is urbanism is still evolving and some of the tracks offered by the IHS can be considered innovative and “trending”, however, you can learn more by doing a couple of Coursera courses than by sitting through the whole year of IHS, do not get fooled by their flashy marketing and nice-looking website. The program was incredibly shallow, the engagement they tried to foster felt forced and, at times, unnecessary. Instead of focusing on a more practical knowledge, they shove in a bunch of general theoretical courses that have close to 0 application in real life and share knowledge that you can obtain yourself by watching a YouTube video on a similar topic. Yes, it is nice to engage with other students and yes, university is not all about “studying”, however, considering that many students choose to do this program to change their career and/or become better at their current career, I would not recommend throwing 15k+ on this education, as the level of education offered by IHS is, honestly, embarrassing. You will learn how amazing and cool western urbanism is without having any idea how to implement this knowledge in your own country or city, especially if you are from a non-EU country. Urbanism is about people, first and foremost, so instead of preaching how important is policy-making (quite a considerable chunk of my class were from non-democratic countries), better give more examples on bottom up initiatives and what PEOPLE can do and not governments. In addition, there is no market in the Netherlands for these professions, you need to realize that you are not being taught to be an architect, urban designer or an engineer - by the end of the year you will have some shallow theoretical knowledge on the issues related to your urban track and a thesis on a topic that you will barely scratch the surface of, as having 3-4 months to write a msc-level thesis is honestly nonsense. So all in all, if you are serious about education and really want to become a professional in the urban field, better study something more practical, as, if you already possess some knowledge in urbanism, most of the knowledge offered by the IHS will be familiar to you or even common sense at this point (we need trees to address climate change in cities, seriously?). I do not want to make a mistake by generalizing my experience but a looot of my fellow classmates shared my opinion, so I share my review with confidence. I do not have an intention, however, to diminish staff's expertise and knowledge but I would have definitely appreciated more transparency on what can we expect from this program and who can we be after. My eye opening moment was during the career event organized by IHS, where none of the employed alumni (and these were the absolute minority) worked in the urban field, quite telling, isn't it?

R F

One of the best places to study urban management.
I studied there a few years ago, the teaching staffs and the administration team are so helpful to cope with the issue we faced during the study.

I must say that it is still memorable to me.

Dr. Joseph Musonda

Studies were spiced up with other social events which never allowed a dull moment. The staff were awesome. It was an outing to remember

Gloria Agema

Unrivaled institution for Urban studies.

Wasi Pra

Tempat yg berkesan

Stefana Cozan

Stephen Ogenrwot

Lisa Manya