Mick about Engineering: a programme for problem-solvers and multi-taskers
How did you end up at the Engineering programme and at the HZ?
“I knew I really wanted to study mechatronics. For me that was the technology branch of choice. Really, mechatronics combines several professions and disciplines. I first spent a year studying ICT at another major university of applied sciences with thousands of students. I wanted to take my studies in a different direction, and I saw the size and scale of my previous programme as a downside. Lecturers who fail to attend meetings, aren’t accessible. This is a somewhat smaller scale programme and the threshold within the HZ is very low, you know everyone.”
What characteristics does someone need for the Engineering programme?
“If you’ve inventive, if you enjoy building things, designing things, then Engineering is the right place for you. If you are versatile and enjoy solving problems in ways that cause as few as possible new problems. It really is a programme for problem-solvers and multi-taskers.”
What do you think of the programme and the things you learn there?
“We are taught a very good methodology at our programme. You learn to develop a product systematically. The methods I am learning in Engineering, I could easily apply during my internship, where I had to design a product from start to finish. This programme provides you with great handholds.”
You did an internship in Bangladesh. What did you do there?
“Deltares, the organisation I did my internship with, is the knowledge institute of the Netherlands in the field of water. They also do a lot of projects abroad. This project, focussing on a polder area in Bangladesh that struggled with water management, arose from foreign aid and was setup by the Dutch embassy. The majority of my time, I was working in Vlissingen on the development of the water level sensor that Deltares wanted to use in Bangladesh. On two occasions I went along to Bangladesh, to observe the environmental factors, perform maintenance on the current sensors and to see what was going well and what needed to be improved. In the end, we installed 15 multi-flex meters on site, which are currently still operational.”
You are about to travel to China for three weeks. What will you be doing there?
“Our programme has a collaboration pact with SMU, Shanghai Maritime University. As part of the education programme there, students attend three weeks of lectures by lecturers from the HZ, who are assisted by Engineering students. I signed up for that and was selected to assist the Integration Project course. This brings together everything that third-year students have learned. We have come up with six assignments, divided among 120 students and we will be assisting them in the performance of these assignments. They then come up with very ingenious solutions, I am really looking forward to it.”