Your study choice is one of the most important choices in your student time. Mine was to enrol in the study Electrical Engineering even though I wasn’t really familiar with electronics.
During high school I always favoured the technical courses but I almost never fumbled around with machines or electronics. So when I had to make my study choice I had to look around quite a bit. Electrical Engineering wasn’t really a familiar field to me but still I was intrigued by it.
Because during my high school time I noticed that I have a certain interest in automating things. Especially in games where this was possible I could spend hours just working on systems that would do a certain task for me. Also in physics class when we were working with some simple digital circuits I noticed I had a certain passion for it. Thus I started looking at Electrical Engineering, where you use electronics to design systems that can do specific tasks.
After visiting an open day I got more and more interested in the study and I requested to participate in the ‘student for a day’ program. The choice for which university I would go to was an easy one. During the open days I noticed the personal and relaxed atmosphere of the University of Twente and how this really suited me. I could really see myself having a good time here. At the ‘student for a day’ program I knew it for sure, this is what I wanted to study, and so it began.
The first year started and immediately the pressure was on. A lot of material to cover and full days at the university. The nice thing about the study Electrical Engineering is that you can apply a lot of the things you learn immediately in projects. This helps you to stay motivated to work hard. The study certainly isn’t easy, but through the years I started to find the study field more and more interesting which gave me the energy to continue.
The beautiful thing at the University of Twente is that there are endless opportunities to enrich yourself when you study here. For instance in my second year I joined the Green Team Twente, which is a student team that builds a hydrogen car that tries to be as efficient as possible. With this car the team participates in efficiency races around Europe. In this team I learned a lot about electronics in practical situations and the problems that you run into.
From the beginning of my studies I also became involved in the study association, Scintilla. A study association in Twente does not only provide you with your books, they also try to fulfil all other needs an Electrical Engineering student can have. They improve the education, arrange companies to have interesting lunch lectures and/or excursions and they have a large offer of fun activities.
Through the years I have arranged my fair share of fun activities and one time even organised the introduction camp for all new students. You organise these activities with other members inside of a committee and besides that it is fun to organise these things, it also gives you training in your organisational skills that you otherwise would net get in your student years.
That’s why I find it very important that when you are a student, you should try to keep improving yourself on a variety of fields and in Twente you get all those opportunities. You can become active in a study association, a sport association or a culture association and almost all these associations are fully run by students who would love to have you on board and motivate you to become active. Furthermore it is important that you choose a study program that truly fits you. When you do these things you have the opportunity to make your student time one of the best periods in you life!