Marjolein van Aalst

Marjolein van Aalst

During my bachelor’s degree in industrial design, I realised that I wanted to have an impact on the world, and that the emphasis on mankind, products and free interpretation of the undergraduate degree didn’t suit me. Because of my interest in the built environment, I ended up in the master's programme in Geomatics. What appealed to me immediately is how it addresses environmental and societal challenges by studying geographic data.

My bachelor's degree did not link up perfectly with this master's degree, so I was taught a lot of new information at a high pace during the first-year courses. I liked how varied the knowledge was and how we were taught Some courses are very technical and focus on programming, while others stress the informational and ethical side. Through lectures, labs, and (group) assignments everything comes together. The information felt useful and relevant and could always be applied in a subsequent course.

Because lots of Dutch and international students with completely different backgrounds enroll in this programme, we learn a lot from each other, both in terms of knowledge and culture. I had never learned to code in my bachelor’s degree, so this was a big challenge for me. By working together with people who did have programming experience, we were able to combine our strengths. However, I would recommend people without programming experience to prepare in advance, if you want to graduate in 2 years without extreme difficulty.

After graduation, I hope to work for the municipality to put my knowledge into practice, preferably in a field related to GIS or database management.