'ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE TECHNOLOGY WE USE EVERY DAY'
“Because I liked subjects of math, physics and computer science, studying Electrical Engineering was a good choice. The idea of studying at an entrepreneurial university that supports innovation, where I would collaborate with people from diverse background, that University of Twente (UT) offered the bachelor’s programme in English and that I could live on campus with access from a library to a hairdresser, excited me. Looking back, doing my bachelor's abroad was the best decision I could have made! Not only was the education level at UT very high, but moving abroad also allowed me to grow personally and learn new things about myself.
Problem-based learning
As a graduate in Electrical Engineering, the most important skill to have, apart from all the technical knowledge, is the ability to have a structured way to approach and solve problems. Whether you work in academia or in industry, you come across problems that you have never seen before. To successfully tackle them, it is important to be able to break down the problem and to quickly identify and perform research on the parts that you might not be so familiar with. Having such a mentality complimented all the technical knowledge I previously gained from my bachelor degree during my internship assignment.
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One thing that greatly contributed to building this mentality was the problem-based learning approach that was part of all the module projects. These projects concentrated on a different specialisation of Electrical Engineering (e.g telecommunications, control and robotics, computer networks) and were a balance between theoretical and practical work.
Internship at CERN
At the end of my 2nd year, I started an internship at CERN. I worked in the Machine Protection group, where I concentrated on modelling transient effects that can occur during fault scenarios at the LHC superconducting magnets. First, I got acquainted with the way of working of the group and understand the research that already was done. I used existing, as well as build my own, numerical models and got familiar with the group’s in-house software tools. Most of the numerical simulations I performed in SPICE and Matlab, which I used before at UT and which allowed me to quickly start working on new results. The electronics and mathematical courses and the experience I had gained from working on projects during my bachelor, were very helpful in approaching and organising the smaller subproblems I wanted to solve, as well as during the process of documenting all my results in the final thesis.
Looking back, I could talk for hours about all the things I miss! I am very grateful for the three years I spent at UT, being surrounded by good friends and professors whose support allowed me to get involved with projects and work in places, like CERN, which I never thought possible. Hopefully, when the opportunity arises, I return.”