Pepijn Rot
I would recommend this minor to anyone who wants to really learn something valuable during their minor period.
Motivation
My name is Pepijn Rot and I am an applied physics student. I have always liked the programming assignments I have received as part of my bachelor programme, but I found the programming aspect of these assignments a bit easy and lacking in depth material. In the applied physics bachelor, only Matlab (and now Python) is being taught to the students. Although a lot can be achieved with this language on its own, I have always wanted to learn different programming languages and I thought my minor would be the perfect opportunity to do so.
This is the main reason why I choose to enrol for the CSE minor. The minor offers the same kind of physics problems that I am used to, but the programming is at a much higher level. From day 1, you start learning and using other languages such as bash, fortran, C and C++.
Practicality
During my bachelor, we mostly solve problems analytically. Unfortunately, such problems only occur very rarely in the real world. In this minor, you will learn to solve all kinds of differential problems numerically that are impossible to do analytically. A very good example of this is the final project that you have to do as part of the programme. In my case, I worked, together with three students from different faculties, on the implementation of electric fields in SEM calculations. We got thrown in the deep and had to really do research to find working solutions. The great thing is that you work together with a very diverse group of people on solving a real problem. Furthermore, you are also in close contact with the researchers and professors for whom you work on the project. Besides being very fulfilling, such a project was the perfect practise for the bachelor project I’ll have to do at the end of this year.
Final thoughts
This minor is a great addition to people that want to learn practical skills in solving problems both mathematically and with programming. I learned a lot of very new things and was able to implement them in my further studies with great ease. I am looking forward to the programming I will have to do in my bachelor thesis. I would therefore recommend this minor to anyone who wants to really learn something valuable during their minor period.