Towards the end of the Bachelor’s I was under the impression that I still had more in me

Prior Education

After finishing high school I started the Bachelor’s Garden & Field Farming at the CAH in Dronten. At the CAH I had four fun years in which, amongst others, topics such as soil water management, European law- and regulation and crop protection were dealt with. During my internships abroad I gained experiences in Ethiopia and Canada and during my graduation year I learned more about the world of precision agriculture and export (minors) and potato storage (internship).

Follow-Up Training or Not?

Towards the end of the Bachelor’s I was under the impression that I still had more in me. When I look back, the four years of my Bachelor’s have flown by and, also because of that, I was interested in doing a two year Master’s program. Besides, I believe that from a Master’s degree merely can be profited in the future. Even if that degree is not used immediately, it will certainly not be an impediment. To me Wageningen University stood for the big University with the small-scale character and this I still find an advantage. During the Open Day I got acquainted with two programs that caught my interest, namely Plant Sciences and Biosystems Engineering.

The Master’s

I started my studies at the WUR off with a switch trajectory prior to the program Biosystems Engineering. To me a technical Master’s seemed to be a good addition to my completed Bachelor’s. The first weeks/month took getting used to. Starting from the beginning the pace was quite high and the spoken language was English for the most part, getting used to that was easier than I had thought. I also liked the lay-out of the semesters, two classes a day, six weeks of classes, then a study week and two exams following in the week after that. The transition to an entirely different program (BSc Garden and Field Farming to MSc Biosystems Engineering) disappointed me, besides that  I had a higher affinity with Garden and Field Farming. That is why I switched to Plant Sciences after half a year (so in hind site, the switch trajectory was unnecessary).

In the meantime I have completed all of the courses and am almost halfway through the Master’s program. Within the specialisation Crop Science I have chosen for the courses such as: Soil-Plant Interactions, Nutrition Management and Crop Ecology. The subjects are dealt with in depth and detail and therefore I am now much beter able to make connections in the field, for example at my parent’s arable farm.

Besides courses from the specialisation, there is the possibly to take courses from different programs. With the subject Economy of Argibusiness I have been able to broaden my program. I find that a valuable incidental is that the collaboration with other (international) students is of often occurrence. I am now half way through the Master’s, in a couple of weeks I will be starting my thesis and conjoining the graduation internship to which I would like to give an international touch.

Studying at the WUR has worked out very well. As of now I think I could be graduating in one year time!

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