Nada Muhammad Yusuf

Nada Muhammed Yusuf
I definitely feel like you can have a wider skill set to share with your employer after SiS, like thinking about everything from multiple perspectives.
Name
Nada Muhammad Yusuf
Programme
Science in Society
Country of previous education
India
Previous education
Bachelor's in Biotechnology

Nada Muhammad Yusuf is a former Master's student Adaptive Organisms and Science in Society at Radboud University. After the programme Nada wrote a testimonial about the Master's specialisations and the atmosphere in Nijmegen.

Why did you choose a master specialisation in Science in Society?

I have always been a science student but I felt like I never really fit, or that I was the best. So I was always looking for an alternative where I could still use my interest in science but not in the traditional way. So I found this study on the Radboud website and I applied for it.

What makes this study different from a traditional research study?

The first thing that comes to my mind is the multi-disciplinary approach. The other Master's just make you very narrow minded whereas Science in Society (SiS) opens up your mind to look at the same topic from many different perspectives, and I think it gives you a more realistic idea of the world. Being a biologist, you would think of an experiment only in the lab, but with SiS you think about what would happen beyond that. How would this experiment fit in or impact the real world? I don’t think any other science programme has such a different way of looking at the science itself.

What were some of the challenges that you faced during this study?

SiS is a bit of science and a bit of social science. I had always been a science student and because of that, it was difficult to turn off the only scientific way of thinking for everything. I was not used to the social science part of thinking so it was a bit difficult to switch gears in my brain.

How do you think this Master's specialisation prepares you for a job in the future?

I definitely feel like you can have a wider skill set to share with your employer after SiS, like thinking about everything from multiple perspectives. After this Master's, you could work as a researcher, or work on policy making or advice, or in the ministry, or become a journalist, or something which mixes up all of those, and this is also something which we see in our teachers. They do a lot of different things. Before this, I have never met a scientist who is involved in so many different activities which they are passionate about and where all of their interests are part of their work life.

What advice would you give to prospective students?

When you read about SiS on the website it just shows about 1% of what the programme has to offer. For example, my internship right now is about public policy and gender studies, and maybe that’s not the first thing which comes to your mind when you look at the SiS website. So, remember that you can do so many different things with the programme, there is no limit.

Also the teachers are very open to your own ideas for an internship, even if you don’t really have a background in that. Like, I didn’t have a gender studies background, but it’s possible to do some extra courses to get the idea. So my advice would be SiS is much more than they advertise, and that everyone should do it.