Did you know that at the HZ you will learn a lot while not inside a classroom?
You don’t always have to be locked in a room to be able to learn something. Fieldwork and company visits can offer you quite some knowledge and experiences as well. This was the case for us when we visited the office of Boskalis in Papendrecht, the Netherlands. The excursion was organised as part of the Dredging and Ecology course, offered for 4th year Civil Engineering and Aquatic Eco Technology students.
The company
Boskalis is a dredging, offshore energy and marine services company that operates around the world. Their vision is to create new horizons by executing an extensive range of dredging and marine projects in 75 countries across six continents.
The relevant markets where they operate are Offshore Energy, Ports and Infrastructure. They provide innovative, sustainable and all-round solutions for the clients in the energy market.
The Excursion
The day started early as a fancy bus organised by Boskalis picked us up at our university and we hit the road towards Papendrecht. When we arrived, we were welcomed with nice coffee, tea and cookies, and led to the meeting room where the presentations were held.
Their current project presented is the Construction of Marker Wadden. This project includes the construction of an island with underwater landscaping. It will provide a major boost for the ecological quality of the Markermeer lake.This is one of the largest nature restoration projects in western Europe. The challenge is to rebalance the ecology of the Markermeer and to develop a sustainable future for the lake by developing a high-quality nature area.
This land reclamation project will change the coastline of the Netherlands. Building with nature approach on the construction of the island is used for the sand distribution, giving the work to the nature. This method allows a bigger area of land reclamation with a project cost reduction.
Touring the grounds
The day later continued with a tour around their facilities. Our guide was a current employee of the company that has travelled abroad for large-scale projects. His stories offered us a lot of inspiration for working in the field.
This experience outside of the HZ gave us the opportunity to be directly in contact with professionals in our area and to see equipments that we have studied in classroom, such as the dredging barge seen in the photo above. The connection that we were able to make between literature and reality is certainly a plus in this education.
Would you also like to have this experience? Do you want to learn out of the box? Then our Civil Engineering programme might be for you! Check out also this blogpost about a field-trip to a construction site.