Alumnus testimonial

Alumnus Marieke Alberts - MSc Molecular Life Sciences

“The programme Molecular Life Sciences was exactly what I was looking for when I finished high school. I always thought that the most interesting subjects can be found at the interaction between the different disciplines. My time in Wageningen was really nice and relaxed, even though I was an active student at the study association M.S.V. Alchimica and the sailing association. But also living together with other students in Wageningen, having dinner together and playing games, made my study time the time of my life."

My work involves a lot of programming

Choosing a path

"I have a broad interest, so I did an internship at the magazine C2W, which is aimed at chemists in the Netherlands. During my masters I did a thesis at the laboratory of biophysics in Wageningen and an internship at a hospital in Amsterdam. During these projects I found out that I didn’t want to continue in a research position. I did like the internship that I did at the foundation C3, which aims to inform and enthuse the public, especially young people, about chemistry.

An unexpected turn

"When I was looking for a job, I found the vacancy ‘resourceful beta’ of the company Transtrend online. I now work at that company at the department operations. The company is a hedge fund, so it is in charge of about 5 billion euros for other companies, like banks and pension funds. We mostly use contracts, so called futures, that is an agreement between two parties to sell or buy a particular product at a certain time for a set price. To determine which futures to sell or buy, we use a computer model, that analyzes the trends at the stock market. My job is to create these models, so there is a lot of programming involved. This career is not typical for a molecular life scientist, but the most important aspect of my work to me is that I keep growing and developing.”

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