Student Testimonial
Theodosis Athanasakis
Personal information
- Age: 25 years old
- Country of Origin: Greece
- Current Residence: Delft, the Netherlands
Theodosis from Greece
Hello, future MOT student, and I say this because I am sure that after reading my story and all the other MOT stories, you would want to be part of this community!
My name is Theodosis, and I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1998. In the next few paragraphs, I want to describe to you my past, present, and future, all in correlation with my studies and professional career, of course.
So, let’s start with my Bachelor's degree. After I finished high school, I joined the School of Informatics (or, as it is generally known; the Computer Science Department) of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. During my studies, I learned a lot about programming, mathematics, databases, and other technical related topics.
As part of my studies, I also decided to dedicate half a year to my exchange studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Despite the COVID pandemic and the weather, everything else passed smoothly and helped me appreciate the country a bit more than before. Thus, after 4 years of labs, programming and COVID, I graduated. It is not that I did not enjoy the ride, but I could not imagine myself doing this kind of work for the rest of my life.
And this is where MOT comes in to fill the gap. Even before I finished my studies, my parents and I discussed the possibility of me pursuing a Master's degree. So, after graduating, I took a gap year, looking for opportunities in and outside of Greece. In general, rather than something technical, I was looking for more abstract studies that combined a technical background with more managerial knowledge to continue with. Hence, one of my choices was MOT.
MOT has nothing to do with most of the other Master programmes at TU Delft. It does not focus on technical skills, but its interdisciplinary nature develops the soft and managerial skills of its participants, giving them the tools and frameworks to pursue a future career as consultants, managers, startup founders or anything else related they want. And this was the perfect match for me. Of course, the road to success is not effortless. There are easy and difficult courses, not interesting ones, and topics that may not fit at first. However, all the experience teaches you to handle different situations and apply the concepts to real-world cases, and after one and a half years in MOT, I fully support my choice of applying and moving from Greece to the Netherlands.
Before I refer to my future plans, I want to take some time and write about the opportunities at TU Delft. The university offers several projects to work on if you are interested. This varies from teaching assistant positions to several multipurpose projects and involvement in student or study associations and committees. Actually, I have already participated in several projects, and this year I am part of the Board of Studies for the faculty, safeguarding the quality of the programmes. This gave me the advantage of meeting and creating connections with people from all around the world.
After finishing my Master's degree, I hope to find a job that combines the knowledge and skills that MOT and Computer Science have taught me. More specifically, by mixing the hard skills from my Bachelor’s and the managerial skills from my Master’s, I can create a core competency over others to be a team leader and/or consultant in the IT industry.
In conclusion, I want to finish this story with the questions that will solve the mystery of whether or not to apply to MOT. Do you want to escape from the technical jobs that you are capable of but not willing to do? Do you want to apply the technical knowledge you have gained, but in a more "top-level" environment? Then, MOT is for you!
If you have any other questions, clarifications, or anything that comes to mind and you want to discuss it with me, do not hesitate to find me on "1-on-1 chats" at the TU Delft website