'We learn to combine technology with creativity to create and improve products.'
When I was younger, I always liked working with different materials and had new ideas. Furthermore, I wanted to improve things and make them more sustainable and therefore decided to enrol myself as an Industrial Design Engineering student to improve my skills in this field.
Serving the needs of the consumer
This Master's offers students the possibility to design and improve consumer goods. It does not solely focus on creating good-looking products, but on serving the needs of the consumer, by improving the production process as well as packaging demands and recyclability. As students, we learn to combine technology with creativity to create and improve the products. Together with my fellow students, I spend time on my workplace to create physical and virtual (consumer-)products, which are practical in use, good looking and fit the needs and wishes of the user. In the Master's you can choose between three different tracks to specialise. I chose the Master's track Management of Product Development.
The University has different buildings, for example, the DesignLab, which is the centre of scientific, technological and creative students and employees of the University. It is unique and offers the possibility to experiment, especially to the technical studies.
Campus life
Since the beginning of my Bachelor's study, I live on Campus in a shared apartment with 14 other Dutch and international students. We share the bathroom and kitchen which goes very well so far. Sometimes a week goes by without me leaving the campus. It is like a small city with a supermarket, doctors, sports facilities and student associations. Next to my study, the university offers many extracurricular activities which makes it sometimes hard to choose. I am part of different student organisations. In the beginning, I joined WOT (Working group for development), which has its focus on technology and development. There we conduct tests and develop cost-effective technologies for use for example in developing countries. Next to that, I am also a member of the Organic Gardening Association Drienerlo (BTD) where I have my own vegetable patch.
Additionally, I am a founder of the student association SUSTAIN that we started two years ago. The idea came while brainstorming with a group of people who were as hyped about sustainability as I was. We wanted to improve sustainability at the university and increase the speed of the process. The goal was to analyse the current problems and to improve and solve them together with the UT.
Lastly, I am also a member of the A3T Drone Team. The student association supports us as members to create complex and innovative drone projects. I have built an unmanned aerial drone to take pictures and videos of festivals or to use it as a tool for police missions or forest fires. Currently, we are participating with it in the competition ‘INNO Student Challenge’ and have just reached the top ten.
Next to my study and the projects I like to do some sports as well. For that, I joined the Survivalrun team ‘Tartaros’ two years ago. The weekly training sessions are always outside and hard but make a lot of fun!
Innovation and entrepreneurship
What caught my interest and was also the final reason to choose the UT is the support that the university offers to students who have innovative and entrepreneurial ideas for projects. For us Industrial Design Engineering students there are many buildings to meet or work on individual projects. Furthermore, we usually work in mixed international teams which makes the group work even more diverse and challenging.