Student testimonial
Student Lina - MSc International Land and Water Management
Lina Dilly: “I have done an internship at the department of Natural History at the NTNU University museum in Trondheim, Norway. Looking for an internship, I realised I potentially fit in a lot of different profiles of organisations, because of my background in International Land and Water Management. My specialisation is in Sustainable Land Management and I focused my electives on nature conservation. A perfect combination, to my idea! This programme offers lots of scope to opt for courses of your interest”
I very much like living here
“After finishing my bachelor’s in International Land and Water Management, I took a year off to travel before starting my master’s. I really liked doing the master’s programme. It provides a good selection of courses and lots of scope to opt for courses of your interest. I was very enthused about the course Sustainable Land Management Policies. I liked the set-up in which we addressed another topic each week. One of the topics covered was EU policies, which I found very interesting. Many courses include field work, I really appreciate that. During both the BSc and MSc, we often went outside to the irrigation tunnel, the water lab or other sites in the surrounding of Wageningen, taking soil samples, measuring infiltration and erosion rates and so on.”
Field work in Austria
“During my thesis research in Austria, I studied mobilisation of agricultural sediment in the Fugnitz catchment. This sediment and its potential contamination affects soil and water quality further downstream causing environmental problems in the Thayatal National Park. I conducted fieldwork and used data processing techniques such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to identify priority areas for Soil and Water Conservation measures.”
Knowledge & skills
“To successfully accomplish my thesis, my master’s provided me with a very useful mix of knowledge and skills. First of all we developed general research competences. Secondly, we improved our set of skills, such a working with GIS, and finally we extended our knowledge on land, water and other domains of our choice. What’s more, we’ve learned a lot of ‘smaller’ practical things, like how to take a soil sample or how to use measuring techniques. So you get a general idea about how things work and you basically learn how to approach and learn new things. This makes me feel more confident to apply for certain jobs in which, in the end, you will be in a learning position again.”
Group work
“We used to work a lot in groups during the programme’s courses. I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of group work, but I’ve learned a great deal from it. Students come from all over the world which is mostly inspiring. Nevertheless, group work is sometimes difficult when different people seem to have another approach to scientific working. That’s challenging, but fortunately it worked out very well most of the times. I think the capability to work in a multicultural team offers an advantage in your future career. The fact alone that everybody here is comfortable speaking English opens up opportunities!”
Social life
“I very much like living here. Wageningen is small, so it was good to be abroad every now and then, but I experience this town as a very social place with an international atmosphere. The advantage of being a small community is that you meet people and make friends easily. I live in the centre, so that makes it easy to meet somebody or to go and work in a coffee bar or so. And there are plenty of nice things to do.”