Doortje Verweij

"In the third year of my bachelor's I gained interest in the European Union and their influence on Europe and the rest of the world. Since spatial planning is mostly a responsibility of lower institutions I did not expect finding a specialisation that exactly fits my interests, but I did here in Nijmegen!
You can clearly see a difference in the amount of work you have to put in the Master's compared to the Bachelor's, but I don't mind since I really like the programme. The focus in this Master's programme also lies more with sustainability, while this was less a focus point in my Bachelor's in Utrecht.
Due to COVID most classes are organised online, which makes it harder to meet other students and get an impression of the teachers. However, Radboud is doing its best to organise some on campus activities and once you've met group members for projects in real life, working together online becomes much easier. Online classes work out fine as well, since the teachers are very enthusiastic about their workfield and are able to share that with students. Next to that, teachers and other students are all very open to help you with questions or challenges that you run into.
So far I haven't run into many obstacles. Radboud motivates students to take a look into the future after our master's by organising lectures by companies, opportunities such as 'employee for a day' and presentations by former master students on their thesis to inspire us. This is all very helpful.
I'm currently still working on finding a subject for my thesis, but I would love to combine writing it with an internship to gain some practical experience in the workfield of spatial planning.
I'm not sure yet where I will end up after this Master's because I like a lot of different directions that spatial planners can go in. Moving on from my choice of specialisation it would be interesting to work for a bigger institution, such as a province, or perhaps the European Union one day. I'm sure I will find my way!"