student's experiences
Pauline Koeneman
This Master’s programme provides you with an insight into the most important aspects of managing a building project. What I like is that the emphasis is placed on the early stages of a project, and not only on the construction phase itself. Apart from a thorough knowledge of building projects, you will also obtain academic and analytical skills, which you can employ in the building industry but also in other sectors.
In one course, we had to develop a plan to redevelop an old theatre in the inner city of Enschede. We had to deal with many stakeholders and as in real life, their wishes changed continuously. On top of that we had to work under significant time pressure, which is also the case in the real world. This project taught us to work together more efficiently, and how to cope with the environment, communication issues and time pressure.
Since I was happy with my Bachelor’s programme at the University of Twente, it was a logical step to pursue my Master’s programme here too. Twente has a good reputation and its graduates are in high demand in professional practice. The Bachelor’s programme contains many technical courses and gives you a solid basis. But in my opinion, that’s not enough to bring out the best in you and to provide you with enough knowledge to find a challenging job. The Master’s programme teaches you to address a project from a management perspective. It gives you much more insight into how projects are set up and carried out.