Arjan Keizer
After graduating in 2011, I joined McKinsey & Company in Amsterdam as a strategy consultant. From September 2013 until October 2015 I temporarily left McKinsey to develop myself externally; first I worked as Project Manager for Schiphol Airport, followed by a one year MBA at INSEAD, in Singapore and Fontainebleau. In October 2015 I rejoined McKinsey as an Associate.
I became interested in the ASM track during my DSE Exercise with Rene Alderliesten, where our team worked on a life extension program for the C130 Hercules. I subsequently decided for ASM, because I was attracted by the interesting opportunities to work with the key Aerospace manufacturers, both as internship opportunity as well as for the thesis work. I did my internship at the Manufacturing Engineering department of Airbus in Stade, where all CFRP parts are manufactured. Another reason to choose ASM was the opportunity for my thesis work to combine modeling, designing, building and testing.
I really enjoyed the last six months of my thesis work. I worked on the design of a lower wing panel made from Fiber Metal Laminates (GLARE). After an intensive literature study, I set-up a test program to analyze the impact of different adhesively bonded doubler run-out designs. I measured the delamination growth rate at different fatigue load levels as well as the bending by using DIC (digital image correlation). I compared these results with Finite Element analyses and empirical formulas. Producing my own specimen, fatigue testing the parts and analyzing the results was very interesting and a lot of fun. The good atmosphere with my fellow graduate and PhD students further strengthened the good experience.
As a consultant I make little use of my knowledge as an Aerospace Engineer. What I do use is the analytical skills that I developed in Delft. As a consultant you need to grasp a lot of information in short notice, structure problems in an insightful and clear way and develop solutions or approaches to bring a company forward. Typical projects have a duration of 3 months, which means that deadlines are short, but also that you have the opportunity to see many different industries and functions. I really enjoy working in a small team of super smart people (similar to my year in the VSV board or the DSE project). Projects typically have significant impact to the company, which means that we often work with top management. As an Associate I take ownership of a workstream and thus am responsible for that part of the project. I run analyses, have interviews and discussions with clients, have calls with global McKinsey experts, have brainstorm sessions with my team and create documents to present our findings. It is intense, but super interesting work.
My advice is to explore all options intensively, which means talking to staff, fellow students and past students, such that you get a clear view what to expect from each MSc track. In parallel to this “research” you should think what is important to you and what you want to learn now, as well what you like to do in the future. By mapping your needs to the identified options, you can make a trade-off and decision. If you are not sure, just talk to more people.
