'I want to help clients improve their business processes and this Master’s teaches me how to do that.'
“After my Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering & Management at the University of Twente, I was quite sure that I wanted to do the Master’s in this field as well. After looking around at other universities, I still thought the Master’s at UT was the best choice. This Master’s has quite a practical approach, as opposed to similar Master’s at other universities. And besides that, this Master’s offers the specialisation Production & Logistic Management, a field I’m very interested in.
Technical Master’s
In a nutshell, this Master’s is about analysing and improving business processes, particularly in production and logistics in my case, as I chose the specialisation Production & Logistic Management. This involves a lot of mathematics and computer programming. Sometimes, people around me think I’m just studying business or management, but Industrial Engineering & Management really is a technical Master’s. We might not become die-hard programmers, but as an Industrial Engineering Manager, you need the know-how. In a way, you are the link between computers and people. You need to know what – for example – a client wants, but you also need to understand what a programmer does.
What I like about this Master’s, is the freedom you get. You have a lot of elective space – 45 EC – which you can fill up with courses you like, not only of this Master’s but also of other master’s of UT. So even if you’re not sure if you want to continue in the field of Industrial Engineering & Management, you still get to acquire a lot of knowledge and skills within other disciplines.
I myself filled up my elective space with some courses of the Master’s in Industrial Design Engineering. After my Master’s, I would love to go into the direction of production, and I figured it might be good to get more detailed knowledge on how products are designed and engineered. I think this was a great choice. During one of the courses, Product Lifecycle, we looked into the production process of for example a smartphone. We assessed how polluting this process is by modelling. It was very interesting to think about how you can produce a product in a less polluting way, and also to generally get an idea of the steps that are involved in a production process.
Many directions
One of the benefits of this Master’s is its wide applicability, but that can make it hard to choose a direction after your Master’s as well. There’s just so much you can do! I decided to first follow a Master’s in Trade and Business Law at the University of Maastricht, before I finish my Master’s in Industrial Engineering & Management at UT, because I think legal expertise could be very useful in my future career.
As for my future career, I think I would like to go in the direction of software consultancy or process optimisation. Above all, I hope I will be able to find a job where I can help clients with a problem by working together with them. I don’t want to be stuck behind my desk on my own, but work together a lot with several parties, which is something you really learn during this Master’s, by the way!”