W.I.S.V. 'Christiaan Huygens'

Minor Testimonials

This page contains testimonials of students who did their minor through a TU Delft enrolment. Testimonials published here are from Bachelor students from either Applied Mathematics or Computer Science and Engineering. If you want to contribute to this page, please send an email to education@ch.tudelft.nl with your name, your study, what minor you did and in what year, a nice picture of you, and a summary of your minor experience of 300-400 words.

The minor testimonials on this page are sorted for each faculty as per the schedule below.  The abbreviations of all the faculties are also explained below.

3ME Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
A+BE Architecture and the Built Environment
CEG Civil Engineering and Geosciences
EEMCS Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
IDE Industrial Design Engineering
TPM Technology, Policy, and Management
AS Applied Sciences
AE Aerospace Engineering

You can download an overview of every minor that TU Delft has to offer here.

Overview minors 2021/2022

PDF, ­979.1 KB

Choose a faculty below:

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Sam de Jong, AM, 2020-2021

Hi! My name is Sam, and I am currently a third-year Bachelor Applied Mathematics student. Last year I decided to do the Minor Biomedical Engineering, given by the 3mE faculty. I personally wanted to do a minor that was way different than mathematics. This minor caught my attention due to it being a minor which focused on the medical field, which has always interested me very much.

Once you begin in this minor, you first follow a course that is a broad introduction to the Biomedical field. You start (re)designing current used instruments and get introduced to all courses you follow during this minor.
After some weeks in the first quarter, you start with a course about the anatomy of the human body. You study how muscles work and the forces which act on bones. During this course, you also learn about the anatomical terminology for all the bones and muscles in your body. You make a total of three assignments on both these subjects and finish the course with a final exam.

Also, you start a course about different biological materials. You learn about when these materials are used, and why some are better than others. This course was given by many guest lecturers from all over Europe which shared their knowledge. You finished this course with, again, three assignments and a final exam
The last course you follow during the first quarter of this minor is about medical imaging. You learn all about MRI and CT-scans and how they work. You also quickly follow some mathematics behind it, but this is certainly not the most important part of this course. You finish this course by giving a presentation and a final exam.

In the second quarter, you follow only one course which is worth 14EC. This is a group project, in which you try to apply all you have learned in the first quarter to a real-life problem. My project involved improving the way a surgeon repairs a fracture in the bones of your foot. This project for me involved discussing with a surgeon who does the operation and going to the LUMC to meet him.

Personally, this minor seemed nice when I read about it and decided to apply. However, the pandemic did tremendously reduce how much enjoyed this minor. This was because everything practical, like constructing the device you design in the last project or joining the surgeon in the operation was not possible. Also being able to join an autopsy or having a guided tour through AMC was no longer an option.
Besides, this minor expects a lot of prior knowledge about material engineering and physics. I heavily leaned on my classmates to fulfill that part about projects, while I did anything related to Mathematics.

In short, if this minor still sounds great to you when you know that you might not do everything practical and if you’re prepared to self-study several subjects about material engineering and physics, then I’d say go apply, good luck, and most importantly, have fun!

Kevin Visser, AM, 2015-2016

Well, hello there. My name is Kevin and I am currently a 23 years old Master student Applied
Mathematics. A few years ago I decided to do the Minor Biomedical Engineering, a Minor mostly given
by Material Engineering and Physics professors. I decided to do so, because I wanted to do a Minor
which had practically nothing to do with Mathematics and to do something slightly out of my comfort
zone. Important to note is that I had already followed a course at Electrical Engineering about
Electricity and Magnetism which helped at some points.

During this Minor you will follow courses about several areas in Biomedical Engineering. You will
for example a course about how machines like an MRI or a CT-scan work. You will learn the physics
and mathematics, e.g. Fourier Transformations, behind this. Other courses teach you about the
materials uses during hip replacement surgeries, or about how muscles, tendons and joints work.
During the Minor you will have the opportunity to be present at an autopsy, or to have a guided tour
at the AMC in Amsterdam to see the earlier mentioned machines in real life.

In the second quarter you will do a large final project worth 12 EC in which you put the knowledge
learned in the first quarter to use. In the year I was doing the Minor, some people developed a
special kind of bed for infants called CloudCuddle and are currently starting a business. I did a
project commissioned by the Dutch Forensic Institute. Unfortunately I am not allowed to say much
more due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

I would say that every Mathematics or Computer Science student should be able to follow the Minor.
If you are interested in doing a Minor in the medicine area combined with some technical aspects,
this Minor is for you. If you are looking for a doable, mostly stress-free Minor with enough time
left for a social life, this Minor is for you.

P.S. It is awesome to say you’ve developed a machine that is currently used at several Dutch
Forensics Institutes.

Robotics

Tim Rietved, CS, 2017-2018

Hi everyone! My name is Tim Rietveld and I’m currently a first-year Computer Science master student.
Last year I’ve done the Robotics Minor from the 3mE faculty. The main reason why I was interested in
this minor is because I really liked the hands-on experience this minor gives you; you start
building a robot from scratch with an interdisciplinary team. Besides this, I found the fact that
these robots are developed for actual clients very compelling.

During the first quarter of the minor, all students follow courses from the other faculties (Statics
and Prototyping for Design in my case) but in my experience, this does not require much of your
time. Most of the time in this quarter is spent on creating and iterating over the design of your
robot. Once the second quarter begins, this design will be the main guideline for developing the
robot. During this quarter no other courses are given, so you can focus fully on your robot.
Together with my group (2 CS, 1 EE, 2WB and 1 ID student) we started developing Fizzy, an autonomous
robot ball for children to play with while being hospitalized, whereas other groups started on
robots for other use-cases, such as a bartender robot, a rose-picking robot, and an autonomous boat.

Timing and coordination between the group members are crucial during this minor, as the people
working on the hard- and software of the robot often need a prototype from the manufacturing team to
perform tests with, and the team manufacturing the robot needs the outcome of these tests to be able
to improve the current design.

The minor itself is a lot of work, especially once the development phase of the robot has begun. As
there needs to be a working final prototype at the end of the minor, setbacks because of hardware
failures and defects can lead to some stressful moments. Be prepared for these failures, as in our
case they were way more common than we’d thought upfront. Working with an interdisciplinary team
helps you approach problems from different stances and find solutions for these kinds of moments.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this minor to anyone who is willing to put a lot of hours
into a minor and enjoys being part of an interdisciplinary team. Although the minor can sometimes be
hectic, you will gain a lot of insights about the total design process of a robot and it is very
rewarding to see an actual working product at the end of it.

Julian van Dijk, CS, 2019-2020

During the first week of the minor, we started off with an introduction on how the first quarter of
the minor would look: A kick-off with your team, meeting with your clients and some select courses
based on the bachelor you are doing. Let’s start off with the team. All teams have a composition of
4 different bachelors with 6 students per team in total. Every team had 2 Computer Science and
Engineering students, 2 Mechanical Engineering students, 1 Electrical Engineering student and 1
Industrial Design and Engineering student. Together we had all the knowledge necessary to build a
working robot. Or so we thought, because before we started with building the robot we had some
courses to attend to. We all had courses from the other disciplines. For me, this meant: Circuit
Analysis(EE), Statics(ME), Introduction to ROS and Design in Robotics(IDE). The other had their
disciplinary course switched to Software Engineering methods(CSE). The courses were doable although
design in robotics is time-consuming. It was scheduled for one and a half days per week. Which
alternated a bit between weeks. During these courses, we already started meeting with our client.
They clarified what they wanted the robot to do and what the absolute no-gos were. Our task was to
build a cheap and small robot bottling machine.

The initial idea was to receive a pallet of boxes with empty bottles, process them and return a
pallet of boxes where all the bottles were filled, capped and labeled. However one of the no-go’s we
received was: “You are not allowed to use conveyor belts”. This meant we had to be
more creative within the assigned budget. Which ended up in us deciding to tackle the single box
problem first.

After deciding upon the specifics of the problem it was time to come up with a solution. Doing this
is easier said than done. We had a deadline at the end of the quarter in which we had to hand in our
design report. This report had to be less than 100 pages. Which proved to
be a challenge. We had to include our three possible designs and which design we eventually chose
and why. Furthermore, it had to include the entire software design, electrical design, and human
interaction design. With all our time spent on brainstorming for design,
creating them and actually following our courses. We were finally able to start on the report two
weeks in advance. After some stress, late nights and some more stress. We managed to hand-in the
report 3 minutes before twelve. Which meant it was time for celebration, because the time of
documenting and courses was over. It was time to start on the robot!
Our eventual solution was a robot arm with a smart gripper. Capable of grabbing bottles with
computer vision and passing them through stations that would do the filling, capping, and labelling.

Geneeskunde voor Technische Studenten

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Architecture and the Built Environment

Archineering

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Heritage & Design

Josephine Keim, AM, 2018-2019

“What am I looking for in a minor?”, “What am I missing in my bachelor Applied Mathematics?”, for me
these questions where the key factors to choose a minor. I wanted to do something more creative!
That’s why Heritage and Design was the perfect combination.

In the minor Heritage and Design, you have a combination of art, architecture, and design. You get a
brief history of Art and Architecture from 1300 to the present. You get lectures about how to
preserve buildings and how to reuse them; heritage. Last, there are three design projects, where you
get a good taste of the designing part of Architecture. All the projects are pretty diverse;
Annualizing a city, designing a park, and redesign a building. In the last project, the most
important part was how can you give a building a new purpose, a new use. How can you use the space
that already exists, keep the historical parts of the building and give something that the
neighbourhood needs? It’s a lot more than just the designing part.

For me, the best part of the minor was that there would be an excursion every two weeks. We would go
to a city in the Netherlands (or even Belgium) and try to recognise the historical creation of the
city, the historical buildings and go to an art museum. Because the minor group was so small, we had
a lot of fun on these excursions. Especially, the two days excursion to Gendt and Liege felt like a
small holiday. Further, I learned how to use Photoshop and Indesign or how to draw a ground map of a
building. It is interesting to work with a multidisciplinary group on a project and see how each
person has different inputs. The last tip, if you are scared that you have not enough designing
background: don’t worry they take into account that you don’t study architecture.

Spatial Computing in Architectural Design

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Spatial Computing for Digital Twinning

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

(Re)imagining Port Cities

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Modes of Existence: Architecture and Philosophy

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

African Dynamics

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Bend and Break

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

De Delta Denker

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Environmental Engineering

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Geo-recourses for the future

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Integrated Infrastructure Design

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Projectmanagement from Nano to Mega

Nienke Nijkamp, CSE, 2020-2021

My name is Nienke and currently I’m finishing up my bachelor Computer Science and Engineering. When having to choose a minor last year I wanted to take a break from the hardcore technical courses. After looking at different minors from TPM, I picked the Project Management: from Nano to Mega minor from Civil Engineering.

In the first week of the minor you get to pick a group of five fellow students, all from different bachelors. The introduction week is all about getting to know the other students from the minor, and on Friday there is a project management game which is a lot of fun. After that the courses from the first quarter start, Project Managements Basics, Introduction to finance & legal aspects of projects and Integration: technical project. In these courses the main focus is people. The courses combine all different aspects of a project. The second quarter consists of the second part of Integration: technical project, Process management and Decision-making, and Fit-for-purpose Project Management.

This minor is great to figure out whether the ‘soft’ side/business side might be something for you. The fit-for-purpose course has different guest lectures every week from project managers from different fields, which was highly interesting. Coming from the Computer Science bachelor, the workload of this minor is doable. If you go to the planned lectures and labs, you don’t have to do much work outside of these hours.

Marjolein Bouwmeester, AM, 2017-2018

While I’m studying in Delft for some time now, I’m still happy with the choice I’ve made when I was
17 years old: let’s study Applied Mathematics! In most parts, the study has met my expectations, but
I bumped into the fact that I really like working with people, being part of a team and discuss what
will be the best approach for a challenge you run into. In the study Applied Mathematics, that’s not
a big part of the programme, so I decided to go into that during my minor. That’s why I choose the
minor Projectmanagement, from Nano to Mega.

The minor was all about people. I think the sentence ‘People are key’ has been used in at least
twice in every course. A result of having that as the main focus is that there is no black and white
right versus wrong like you have in Math and I think in Computer Science too. There can be multiple
ways to be right, as long as you explain it in a good way. I actually loved that. Results were
discussable and there was a lot of focus on learning from each other instead of learning from the
theory in a book. The side-effect of this is that some of the content could be pretty vague. So when
thinking about this minor, take that into account.
The minor consists of 5 courses. In the first ten weeks, there was Project Management Basics, which
was a lecture-based course that is supposed to teach you all the basic concepts of Project
Management. Also Legal and Finance was in the first weeks: five weeks of legal (which I found
extremely interesting) and five weeks of finance (where you could use your mathematics skills a
little). Also, the project started, which endured the whole minor. The project was meant to apply
the knowledge you gained in the courses on a simulation project (of your own choice) which you
should manage with your group. The second ten weeks were, like the project which went one, all
group-based. In programme management, there were lectures about how to combine projects and there
was a big assignment in which you had to interview a programme manager. The last course was for me
the most interesting one, but also the vaguest one though. The assignments you had to hand in each
week were not that clear, but the professor of this course had invited two project managers each
week to be interviewed by us. From project managers of NS to the guys who led the building of the
Noordzuidlijn, we’ve met a lot of people.

About meeting people, don’t worry about group work. When starting the minor, I knew none of my
fellow students, but I’ve met some cool people here quickly because the whole first week of the
minor is all about the general introduction and getting to know each other.

Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Computational Science and Engineering

Tuhin Das, CS, 2020-2021

Hi, my name is Tuhin and I am a third year Computer Science and Engineering student. As the minors abroad were cancelled due to COVID-19, I wanted to do a minor at TU Delft which would include some mathematics courses. My choices boiled down to the Finance minor and the Computational Science and Engineering minor. I eventually chose for the latter, as I think it was a better addition to my current study.

The minor itself indeed consists of courses that are a mix of computer science and mathematics courses. As a CSE student myself, the courses that were mainly computer science oriented (Parallel Programming, Scientific Programming, OOP in C++) were interesting and definitely captured more knowledge than covered in the CSE bachelor. The more mathematics oriented courses (Numerical Methods for Differential Equations and Numerical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations) were definitely interesting, but I must say that they were more challenging as the CSE bachelor does not prepare your math skills quite well enough. So I would recommend this minor to CSE students if they are willing to study up on some math material on their own, to get to speed for those courses.

Finally the minor contains a project, which in my opinion was a great way to incorporate some of the newly learned knowledge in a real research project. The available projects are scattered over the faculties at the TU Delft, so it is possible to find a research domain that someone has never worked in before.

Douwe Hoonhout, CS, 2018-2019

Hi, I am Douwe Hoonhout. I am a fourth-year bachelor student in Computer Science. This year I did
the minor Computational Science. Before Computer Science I was already interested in Mathematics as
well. That is why I was interested in doing a minor related to Mathematics. Also, there were some
Programming courses which to me seemed a nice way to broaden my programming skills. These
programming courses mainly focussed on solving heavy computations. One course is fully focussed on
parallelization since doing computations in parallel is a great way to speed up your heavy
computation. Another programming course was mainly focussed on errors that will occur when doing
computations. Some numbers have many decimals that you can not normally store into a computer. This
can lead to big errors over time compared to the actual result. The two numerical method courses
were very hard for me. If you are from Computer Science and you want to do this minor, I would
highly suggest you do some numerical methods before you start. For me, it was the first time I was
exposed to numerical methods and I would say that most people should have some pre-knowledge. Last
but not least is the project which combines all knowledge to actually make your own numerical
implementation. The nice thing about the project is that they will mix computer scientists with
mathematicians (and other studies). This results in students that can really help each other since
they have different backgrounds.

Johnathan Katzy, CS, 2017-2018

Hey, my name is Jonathan Katzy and I am a first-year master student of Computer Science at the
TU-Delft. During my Bachelor’s, that I also got at the TU-Delft I did the minor Computational
Science and Engineering.

The CSE minor is a minor that can help you widen your view in computer science by going more into
depth about parallel programming, as well as going more in-depth into areas such as compilers that
are skipped over in the Bachelor. Furthermore this minor will introduce you into some basic
mathematics, primarily differential equations, where there are 2 courses about numerical methods and
stochastic differential equations. My reasoning for choosing this minor was that I enjoyed computer
science but also wanted some more mathematics, which worked out quite well for in this minor. For
moth mathematics students and computer science students I would recommend this minor, primarily
because it lets you broaden your knowledge whilst remaining marginally in your own discipline, and
of course that the study load is not too high if you work with people from other disciplines.

The minor overall is not too challenging, for people from Computer Science who have only followed
the calculus course it may take a bit to get up to speed with the mathematics being discussed in the
mathematics courses, however, I found that there are plenty of non-Computer Science students willing
to help you out. When it comes to Computer Science courses, they are a breeze. The main advantage of
following them is that you get more insight into things like handling catastrophic cancellation and
working with numbers that are larger than standard floats. Also, you get an introduction to C++ and
how to work with memory allocation and compilers. This is what I found the most interesting about
computer science classes as it is often ignored in the rest of the bachelor. For the Computer
Science classes, you will find though that you may want to help out the people from other
disciplines as they will not have had as much experience programming and will often struggle with
some aspects.

The overall workload of the minor was very doable. You should definitely be prepared to put in some
extra time for the mathematics courses, but this is more than offset by the relatively little effort
you need to do to pass any of the courses that require programming. One thing to be aware of though
that was very different for me is that, if they are using the same course structure, you will need
to do an oral exam for the stochastic differential equations course, which may seem daunting but was
actually nicer to do than a written exam.

Linda Leeuwestein, AM, 2017-2018

Hi, my name is Linda Leeuwestein, and I’m currently a third year Bachelor student, studying Applied
Mathematics at the TU Delft.

This year, I did the minor CSE. Seeing as I want to do a master in Financial Engineering, I was also
considering a minor in Finance, but rather than focusing on this topic in the minor as well, I
thought it would be better to expand my knowledge with computational science instead. After all, CS
is a very important aspect in almost every (mathematical) field, including Finance, and I thought it
might come in handy to gain experience in this field.

The two numerical method courses were complementary to the introductory course during the major,
focusing especially on differential equations. In the scientific programming and parallel computing
courses, the focus is mostly on efficient programming, where several programming languages are
compared. During the C++ course, the focus is on the actual creation of small programs from scratch,
in the C++ language (programs that would be easy to program in a different language). Finally, there
is a final minor project, where you and three other students work on an actual (mostly physical)
project with a supervisor from a different faculty.

Compared to my major, the level of this minor in terms of difficulty and time spent on attending
lectures, and studying at home, was much lower.

In terms of working pressure, this minor can easily be combined with other courses, activities or
work.

The minor is a good combination of studying individually for exams and working together on projects
and assignments in small groups. In my experience, the courses focusing on numerical methods were
easier for AM students than for CS students, whereas for the programming courses it was the other
way around, but by putting in enough effort, I believe they were all very doable for all students.

I would recommend this minor to anyone interested in (numerical) mathematics and programming. I
believe this minor is a nice addition to my curriculum vitae and I’m happy I chose this minor.

Electronics for Robotics

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Electrical Sustainable Energy Systems

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Finance

Louise Leibbrandt, CSE, 2020-2021

My name is Louise Leibbrandt and I am currently in my last year of the Computer Science and
Engineering bachelor. I have just completed the Finance minor, which due to current circumstances,
took part in online education. There were no physical lectures this year and many of the mandatory
weekly assignments given in years past were cut from the program.

I decided to follow this minor as I have an interest in mathematics and payment systems. From this
perspective, the Finance minor was highly interesting to me and I enjoyed the majority of the
courses. The minor includes several theoretical courses where you will dive deep into the
mathematics that is driving the financial world. There are also a few application courses where the
mathematics is applied to programming small functions in MATLAB. You will also get the opportunity
to discuss current issues in the finance world. Overall, I felt that the minor gives a
strong basis and there is enough opportunity to apply the techniques being taught.

I will give a word of warning that the tempo of this minor is fast, and it requires a somewhat high
level of mathematical understanding. If you do not enjoy mathematics and lots of self-study, I would
recommend considering a different minor. It is also important to note that in the
second quarter you will have to take 5 end term exams within a two-week period, meaning that the
course load in the second quarter is higher than the first.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this minor and I feel that I’ve gained a lot of valuable knowledge.
If you are interested in mathematics and finance, then I would highly recommend considering the
EEMCS minor in Finance.

Kilian Buis, AM, 2019-2020

In the first semester, I did the minor Finance. Since the minor contains a fair bit of mathematics, economics and relies on multiple Matlab implementations, the minor is very interesting for both Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and Engineering students.

During the minor I learned a lot, but there was one concept that took center; an option. To explain what an option is, we consider an asset with a certain initial price $S_0$. If you buy a \textit{call option}, you will get the right to purchase from the seller a prescribed asset for a prescribed price ($E$) in let’s say a year from now. If you buy a \textit{put option}, you will have the right to sell this asset to the buyer asset for a prescribed price in a year from now. Under the influence of different parameters, the asset price can either go up or go down. Of course, if you have bought a call option, you hope that the asset price will go up to price $S_T$, since you can then buy the asset at a prescribed price and then sell for $S_T$. This will give you a value of $S_T – E$. In the same way, you hope for a drop in the price if you bought a put option. This gives you a value of $E – S_T$.

However, we need to determine a price for these options ($V_0$). That is not so easy, and can be done in multiple ways. During the minor, you will learn that in the discrete case there is an algorithm for determining this price. In another course, we studied the continuous case. With the help of a famous differential equation (the Black-Scholes equation) we could find the price using a Matlab program.

Besides studying these options, we also learned how to invest our money properly when we have the choice of multiple investments. In addition, we analyzed the risks involved in these investments.

What I liked most about the minor is that although at first glimpse the courses seemed very diverse, in the end it becomes clear that they all share multiple topics. Also, all the material you learn can immediately be used in some really cool examples. For instance, we analyzed the stock price changes of some big banks and then made some predictions for the future of the banks. Especially the last I found really interesting and for this reason alone I will definitely recommend this minor if you like finance.

Joost Gobbels, AM, 2018-2019

My name is Joost Gobbels and currently, I’m in my third year of applied mathematics and last year I
took the Finance minor. After finishing my first 2 years I had the idea that I had quite a lot of
mathematical knowledge, but that a had very little experience applying this knowledge, therefore I
choose to do the minor Finance.

The minor begins with a lot of general information because you need to get used to financial terms
like put short options, after this, all subjects start going into their own debt. What I liked most
about the minor was that it covered a large variety of topics, for example, in Monte Carlo and Time
Series, you are modeling different options and stocks, in Current Issues in Mathematical Finance,
Principles of Asset Trading and Risk Management, you are focusing on daily application of different
models and regulations and in the courses Option Valuation and Introduction to Mathematical Finance
you go more into depth about the theory behind all the models.

As a mathematician, the minor shouldn’t be very hard for you, but you shouldn’t underestimate it.
The minor does have quite a lot of mandatory homework exercises, which forces you to keep up with
most of the subject, this is really necessary because at the end of Q2 you have 5 exams because most
subjects are semester subjects.

I would definitely advise the minor to all students who want to see applications of their
mathematical skills in the field of finance, especially students who liked courses in statistics and
probability theory, who also want to see some computational examples of their gained knowledge.

Zoë van Steijn, CS, 2017-2018

My name is Zoë and I’m currently in my first year of the master Computer Science. Last year, I
decided to do the minor Finance at the faculty of EEMCS.
Even though I study Computer Science I have always had an interest in mathematics. Therefore, I
thought it would be nice to do a minor in this direction. After browsing through all available
minors I found out about the minor Finance. This seemed to be a good fit since finance was also an
interest of mine. Back then I invested some money in the cryptocurrency market (and failed
miserably) and thought it would be interesting to learn some more about stocks and other financial
products.
The minor turned out to be very interesting. Many teachers had a background in finance and knew a
lot about the subjects they were teaching. The theoretical part of the lectures was often linked to
real-life examples. Therefore, you really get the feeling that the material you are learning is
actually useful to know.
Since it is a minor from the Mathematics department you can, of course, expect a lot of mathematics.
At the start of the minor, you are already expected to be a bit familiar with probability and
statistics. On day 1 you get a small exam on this topic. Furthermore, for some of the courses, you
have to program in Matlab and R, however, I think the minor is also doable if you have no experience
with this. Many courses have weekly assignments that you have to hand in. These are all individual,
the minor does not have any group projects.
All in all, I am really glad I chose this minor. The courses were very well-organized and the study
material was interesting. I really recommend this minor to anyone who has an interest in mathematics
as well as the financial world

Mathematics and Finance

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Computer Science

Arian Joyandeh, AM, 2018-2019

After having seen Computer Science students do the coolest of things in the first two years of my
bachelor’s, I wanted to be able to do similar things. That is why I chose the minor Computer
Science.

The three most important things I have learned from this minor are: learning about machine learning
and the mathematics behind it; project management by using agile methodologies and of course
programming for all kinds of purposes, in the following three paragraphs I will explain a bit on
these points.

First of all, machine learning. You probably have heard this term being used as a buzzword, but I
found it really cool actually. In the course ‘Computational Intelligence’, you learn all about
machine learning and the ideas behind it. One of the ¢projects we had to do for this course, was
training ‘ants’ (not real ants, but on the computer) to solve a maze on the computer. In this
course, I learned how my mathematical background gives me a great advantage in understanding such
processes.

Secondly, I learned a lot about project management. In the ‘Software Engineering Methods’ course,
you learn about agile methodologies and you put these methodologies to use immediately during the
project that is also part of the course.

Lastly, programming. It’s no mystery that in a Computer Science minor you’re going to program a lot,
but what surprised me is how small things I want to do on my computer are going way easier because
of my newly acquired skills.

The most useful information I can give you is the fact that as an Applied Mathematics student, you
probably have finished the course ‘Introduction to Programming’. A very similar course to this is
part of the core of the minor, that is why you will need to find a replacement. I followed the
first-year Computer Science course ‘Object-Oriented Programming’ and it was very interesting.
Perhaps you have also finished the Algorithms and Datastructures elective during your bachelor, a
similar course to this one is also part of the core of the minor, then you will also have to find a
replacement for this course. I highly recommend following ‘Algorithm Design’, which is a course for
the second year Computer Science students and a follow-up on the Algorithms and Datastructures
course.

In conclusion, if you want to get the most out of your minor, I’d strongly recommend the Computer
Science minor!

Industrial Design Engineering

Advanced Prototyping

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Designing Sustainability Transitions

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Interactive Environments

Ricardo Vogel, CS, 2020-2021

Hi, I’m Ricardo, I’m a third year Computer Science and Engineering student, and I did the Interactive Environments minor at the Industrial Design faculty.

During the minor, we made two concepts to make the Mekelpark more interactive and fun. We also built working prototypes for them. In the first quarter we worked in pairs: one more design focused student, and one more engineering focused student. In the second quarter, we were put into interdisciplinary teams of six students of all kinds of programs of study.

During the whole minor, we were given small seminars about various design and technology related topics, for example Arduino, creativity, 3D modeling, copywriting, and manufacturing. These seminars were very practice-oriented, there often were assignments, and we were able to apply the knowledge during the project.

The real fun of the minor is the group projects. Like I said before, we did two projects. In the first quarter, I was paired up with an architecture student. We were given a theme, in our case “focus on transitional spaces within the Mekelpark.” We designed a path of water lilies that light up and make a sound when stepped on, to give people a small break when walking between faculty buildings. In the second quarter, the groups were given a more complete design brief, and the focus was more on manufacturing the prototype. We built an installation of connected nodes, that could play sounds with vibration motors. It was linked up to a data source, and gave an insight into the workflow of people working from home.

All in all, this minor is a nice balance of design, technology, and art. You are given a lot of freedom within the project, and by the end you’ve made two projects you can be proud of.

Ricardo Jongerius, CS, 2019-2020

I did the minor Interactive Environments from the IDE faculty in 2019/2020. I have always had an interest in Industrial Design; it would have been my second choice of study had Computer Science not worked out. For my minor I wanted to do something completely different to CS, so the choice was fairly easily made.

The minor is basically split in two parts: learning about the basics of different Industrial Design techniques and technologies in the first quarter, and a large group project in the second quarter. The first quarter was very fun, you are encouraged to experiment a lot and get many opportunities to show your creativity. There’s also some programming of arduino for which you’ll probably have to guide your minor mates through, but they can in turn help you again with things like 3d modelling or ideation techniques. The first quarter is a lot of different little exercises, where you get to know the basics about a lot of different things like brainstorming, 3d printing, laser cutting, general woodworking and moodboards.

The second part was a big project, in our year for KLM. We had to make an interactive environment for different scenarios from a typical day from the flight crew. My group had to make an interactive meeting room, which was probably the least fun assignment out of all of them. (unfortunately!)

Overall, I had a lot of fun during this minor, and also learned some interesting things. You really get to work with your hand and build something physical, which I really enjoyed. It’s also a multidisciplinary minor, so you get to work together with people from various backgrounds. Be aware though, it can be a little vague and intangible. You shouldn’t be afraid to express yourself. All in all, I definitely recommend this minor!

Connected Creativity

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Smart and shared cities

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Technology, Policy, and Management

Companies and Innovation

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development

Ilona Post, AM, 2018-2019

Are you interested in working with a multicultural and –disciplinary group of people? Do you want to
learn about dealing with unexpected issues? Do you want to broaden your view and develop your social
skills and critical view? Then this minor might be for you!
I am Ilona Post, a student in Applied Mathematics and I was part of the very first cohort
(2018-2019) of the LDE minor Frugal Innovation. This minor is organised by Leiden University, TU
Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam.
In the first 10 weeks you will learn about Frugal Innovation; what it is, what we think it should
be, how we can contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and what it has to do with
technology, entrepreneurship, and development. The latter is also the 3 parts to which the 10 weeks
are dedicated; Technology in Delft, Entrepreneurship in Rotterdam, Development in Leiden. The
courses are very interactive. You are challenged to take part in discussions and workshops together
with a multidisciplinary group of people. Working with such a variety of people demands you to
broaden your view and be more critical than ever.
The classes are exciting. Attendance is compulsory and examination is done by essays and projects.
During the first 10 weeks, you will be busy preparing the internship for the last 10 weeks. During
this internship, you will take on a frugal project in a developing country with 1 or 2 other
students. There will be a variety of projects available from which you can choose. Together with
Filip, I went to Uganda for 2,5 months. TU Delft and MUST University (Mbarara) are working together
on a sustainable inexpensive MRI machine. We worked on improving the technical development at the
university there, we set up a business model for future business, we met with medical companies,
visited different hospitals, talked to the ministry and acquired a lot of information from
governmental organisations.
The thing you learn most by living and working in a developing country is that nothing goes as
planned, but still you deal with it and manage to get something good out of every part of the
experience!
If you are interested, still in doubt, curious about experiences or want to know about my approach
for the application, you can reach me by email (ilonap@ch.tudelft.nl) or read my small blog on
Polarsteps (polarsteps.com/IlonaPost).

International Entrepreneurship and Development

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Med-Tech Based Entrepreneurship

Note: this is a Dutch minor!

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Technology Based Entrepreneurship

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Responsible Innovation

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Security, Safety and Justice

Laetitia Melkboer, CS, 2018-2019

The minor Safety, Security, and Justice focusses, like the name says, mostly on how do we keep the
world safe and secure. However, there are more sides to safety and security than one might think.
Because of the combination with the University of Leiden, you learn not only about the more
technical side of safety and security, but also the ethics and justice issues surrounding safety and
security. Where the TU Delft teaches you about models one can use to approach a safety or security
problem, Leiden makes you think about topics such as when are security measures invading privacy or
how can one research a crisis.
The minor is split, as mentioned before, between two universities. The courses are as follows: in
the first quarter you have the classes Researching Crisis and Security Management and Law and
Security taught by Leiden University and Security and Technology taught by the TU Delft. The course
Researching Crisis and Security management work towards a final paper the students will have to
write, which will be a research proposal. The course Law and Security will also end with a paper in
which students have to use the topics that were discussed during the course. The course Security and
Technology will have a final exam covering everything discussed during the course. In the second
quarter will consist of Terrorism and Counterterrorism taught by Leiden University and Security and
Technology and Security Integration Project taught by the TU Delft. The course Terrorism and
Counterterrorism try to show that not all assumptions that we have about terrorism are true or only
partly true, while also covering show history. Students in this class will have to write a midterm
paper and make a final exam. The course Security and Technology discusses the ethical and security
implications of new emerging technologies and with a group paper discussing an upcoming technology.
Finally, the course Security Integration Project has its focus on how a security or safety incident
in a multi-actor environment can be explained.
This cooperation of universities means you will sit in class with a student from a wide range of
studies. The professors try to use that unique opportunity to make students aware of different sides
to the same story. Where TU Delft students might approach a problem in one way, students from Leiden
university or the Erasmus university might approach the same problem in a different way.

Applied Sciences

Communication Design for Innovation

Sophie Walboomers, CSE, 2020-2021

Hi! My name is Sophie Walboomers and I study Computer Science and
Engineering. I did the minor called Communication Design for Innovation.

The minor contains two key courses. The first course is about sociology
and psychology. Some questions that will be addressed during this course include: how people
behave in a society, how people learn, how to work efficiently in a team, and how to change
someone’s behaviour. In the second part of the minor you will get a course called Communication
Marketing and Innovation. This course focuses on issues that arise when you want to bring your
innovation or technical solution into society.

Both courses contain valuable information that you need to use during a
case study, together with a group of 6 students. For example, my group got the assignment to
improve the efficiency of the police in Rotterdam-Zuid. To come up with a good solution we did a
lot of stakeholder interviews, visited the police station, and tried to apply the theoretical
models to our case.

Furthermore the minor contains some masterclasses, that cover a variety
of topics. Some examples are teambuilding, visual thinking (how to create visuals to
communicate), intercultural communication and technical writing.

During this minor I learned a whole different skill set than what I
normally did during my studies. This minor is great if you want to spend some time thinking
about the context of technology and innovations, and how to communicate your technical solutions
to different stakeholders in society. For me, this is a welcome addition to the technical skills
obtained in the rest of my studies.

Louise Zwep, AM, 2018-2019

Communication Design for Innovation is all about making you into a so-called ‘all-round engineer’.
As an engineer, you should not only be able to think about solutions to difficult problems, but also
how to present these solutions to the world. We are communicating all the time, but in our studies,
there is almost no attention to it. In CDI, you learn how people communicate, why people communicate
and how people work together.
The minor proceeds as follows: you get a communication problem from a real company. For instance, I
got a project of people working together on creating a Blockchain network. To this end, they started
an online work environment, Google Drive a la LinkedIn a la overleaf. It would be a tool which would
fix all their problems, but no one was using it. Now was the question to me and my group: why is no
one using the online collaboration tool? This was the main project I was focussing on.
To find a thorough solution to this problem, we got courses which gave us the theoretical
background. In the first quarter, we had a course on psychology and the second quarter on marketing
for innovation. These courses gave us the insights we then could use in our project.
Next to this, you also get ‘masterclasses’. These are 2 or 3 full days on which you focus on the
soft skills of communication. You’ll learn for example how to using drawings to clarify yourself,
how to communicate through cultural differences and how to make yourself credible in a presentation.
All super useful skill for the rest of your career!
All in all, it was very informative (and fun!) to do something not technical for half a year. You
work in groups with people from different backgrounds and learn a lot about the way they handle a
problem. This minor broadens your way of working and thinking and gives a lot of new insights. So if
you want to do something completely different then AM or CS, I would highly recommend CDI!

Chris Mostert, CSE, 2017-2018

My name is Chris Mostert, I am a third-year computer science student and 21 years old. Last year I
chose the Communication Design for Innovation minor to have a breath of fresh air. Because the
Computer Science Bachelor focused heavily on more abstract matters, I thought it would be nice to do
a minor with a more down-to-earth subject matter. I also thought that it would be nice to expand my
horizon a bit and thought that the skills I would learn in the minor might really benefit me later
in the Computer Science world.

The workload of the minor is very manageable, you have two ‘traditional’ courses, with lectures and
an exam. Next to these courses you have one large project in which you design a communication
strategy for a case commissioner from a real company. In addition, you have several masterclasses
which aim to teach you a certain skill, like business negotiation or visual thinking. The minor
teaches you a broad set of skills which I think will certainly be beneficial in my future career.

For Computer Science and Applied Mathematics students this minor will feel very different, and that
is exactly why I chose to do it. You will be reading a lot of literature in
psychology, marketing and design. You will be actively working together with your multi-disciplinary
team and your case commissioner to iterate over and design a set of tools to help them solve their
communication problems in their organization.

If you choose this minor, you need to feel comfortable with working in teams on a large project and
be open to a more ‘alpha’ side of science. At times as a Computer Science student the subject matter
might feel very vague, but it can really give perspective on a different kind of science and improve
your communication skills at the same time.

Educatie

Note: this a Dutch minor!

Abel Frank, AM, 2018-2019

Do you enjoy working with teenagers, making a difference for others and do you want something
completely different than just following classes? Then you should really consider the minor
education. In just slightly less than 5 months you will learn how to teach mathematics at a
secondary school. You will learn to understand what it is to be a teacher and experience education
from another point of view. And as a bonus, you receive a teaching qualification, which allows you
to teach children aged 12-15 at a secondary school.

Hello, I am Abel Frank (21) and at the moment of writing I just completed my minor Education and I
am almost ready to start my bachelor’s final project Applied Mathematics. The minor consists of
three parts. The first six weeks are for orientations. In this period, I observe other teachers and
carry out assignments. It is important to get to know the children as you are going to teach them
within time.
The second period is the practical part because you are going to teach several classes now. As you
can expect this is the most challenging period. Do not underestimate it, as it will take a lot of
energy and time. As an AM student, I had an advantage because I did not have to delve into the math
material and practice some topics again.
Once a week there are classes in Delft where you will follow some educational courses. These courses
covered the theoretical part of education, which I did really enjoy as I preferred to teach. The
last part is after Christmas. This is the moment to complete your last assignments and hand in your
portfolio.

I think that the education minor is fairly practical, which is awesome since you mostly follow
theoretical courses at the university. I received many positive reactions from the children I taught
and even from my colleagues. That made me realize that being a teacher is a very rewarding
profession. I even got a temporary job at my internship school. After the minor, I noticed that my
presentation skills improved immensely, and I can give a presentation without any nerves.
Therefore, I recommend the educational minor to everyone who likes working and teaching children and
is looking for a practical minor.

Jip Rietveld, CS, 2018-2019

Last year when I had to choose my minor, the obvious choice was education. During secondary school
and at university I was always interested in teaching as a profession. Trying it out in such a
low-key manner as a minor is perfect. Half a year of doing something totally different than computer
science.

Three days of the week you will be at a secondary school in an internship. In the beginning, you
will be doing a lot of observing, you are observing lessons and making notes on how you want to
start teaching your own future lessons. Besides that, in the first quarter, you have a lot of
subjects on preparing your lessons and about how you really teach kids something. In the second half
of the minor, you are only following lectures in Delft one day in the week. The rest of the days are
spent at your internship where you are expected to give nearly 60 hours worth of lessons.

This is hard work. Juggling the assignments given by the TU Delft as well as the tasks given by your
mentor at the internship is tough. Long days of preparing your lessons, printing out worksheets and
marking tests are all part of the job. Do not pick this minor if you are not ready to put in the
extra mile. You cannot slack off on the children you will be teaching and the TU Delft does not
expect you to slack off on them.

But teaching children is oh so satisfying. Working with the kids and seeing their laughs, or seeing
their eyes twinkle when they finally understand what you´re teaching them is great fun. You will
have an experience with this minor you will not be able to get somewhere else. Besides that, you
will have a real certification to teach the lower ages in a secondary school as soon as you are
finished with your bachelor.

All in all, a minor that is very different from computer science. A minor that is a lot of hard
work. But it is a very unique and special minor in the stories and experiences you will receive from
it.

Modern Physics

No testimonials for this minor as of yet.

Quantum Science and Quantum Information

Mirte van Loenen, AM, 2020-2021

Hello, my name is Mirte van Loenen. I did the quantum science and quantum information minor last semester and am currently a third-year applied mathematics student. The minor is still very new as this was only the second year and due to covid the entire minor was online. This was obviously a struggle, but the team still managed to create a full well-rounded and very interesting minor. This minor is available for physics and EEMCS students and requires no prior knowledge on quantum whatsoever. It does require a very strong mathematics and physics background.

As a mathematics student, I struggled with the lack of physics knowledge at certain courses and I heard from many other students that they struggled with a lack of mathematics knowledge. This is definitely not an easy minor. If you are interested in quantum science, however, this minor does provide courses on a lot of different theoretical and practical aspects of the quantum realm. Because the minor is mostly given by qutech researchers, which are the best of the best, you also get insight on current research and its challenges. This is truly exciting and makes the courses way more interesting.

The minor follows the physics structure, which means you have tests almost every 5 weeks. Loads of tests tend to be a theme this minor, which did not translate well to online education, but all tests were open book which actually suited the material. There are some group projects as well, especially at the end, which were really fun, because you get to work with students from different studies. You also get the opportunity to directly apply the information you learned in these projects.

Overall, this is a fantastic minor. It gives a very broad look into quantum technology. The teachers did a great job on making the material interesting and are open to all questions about quantum including their own research. So if you are interested in quantum science and maybe even in qutech I would definitely recommend this minor!

Aerospace Engineering

Airport of the Future

Note: this a Dutch minor!

Janne Heslenfeld, AM, 2020-2021

My name is Janne Heslenfeld and I am currently in my last year of the bachelor Applied mathematics. The first part of my last year I have completed the minor Airport of the future. This minor takes place at the Aerospace faculty, with collaborations at other faculties like civil engineering, industrial design engineering and technology, Policy and management. This means this minor offers a lot of different courses, which I really liked. I have chosen to do this minor due to my big interest in aerospace and management of big companies. This minor gives non-aerospace students I good look in how aerospace works.
At my bachelor, there was not much focus on doing projects with other students, but at this minor I learned how to do big projects with students from different studies. Something which is also really nice to do.

The minor offers a lot of different courses which together form a decent understanding of how an airport (and airplanes) works.
The first quarter we began with 2 aerospace courses and a project of civil engineering. The 2 aerospace courses were really interesting and one also offered guest lectures of people and companies in the aerospace world. The focus did not lay in solving difficult calculations but in the understanding of how an airport is structured.
The second aerospace course offered mandatory weekly assignments which in the end counted for you end grade. These assignments were tough since we had to do it in excel, which I was not familiar with. When I got the hang of it, the exercises were very meaningful. In the second quarter I could use the knowledge.

In the second quarter, we had logistics, an industrial design project and another aerospace project.
The course logistics, I liked the most, which is not a big surprise, since I’m still a math student. This course wasn’t difficult but very interesting and different from the somewhat theoretical courses I have at my bachelor.
The industrial design project was very interesting since we had to do a project for Rotterdam The Hague airport to solve a real life problem they face. I had the feeling I did something useful.
The aerospace project was focused on managing an airport, which every group got assigned to one, with the help of some software (which is not so user friendly). Really interesting to see some insight of how an airport is managed.

I would definitely advise the minor to all the students that are interested in aerospace and want to do something completely else than mathematics or computer science for a change.
This minor doesn’t have a high workload but offers the opportunity to work with other students from different studies.

Offshore Windenergy

Note: this a Dutch minor!

Lieke van der Linde, AM, 2019-20201

Hi! My name is Lieke and last year I took part in the Offshore Wind Energy minor. This minor officially takes place at the Aerospace faculty, but we followed lots of courses at other faculties. In my opinion, this is what makes Offshore Wind Energy a good minor. I got to learn about project management, aerodynamics, but also about the energy system worldwide and how it should be improved. In the end, we were instructed to design a wind farm with knowledge from all the courses and also with people from different faculties.

I am an Applied Mathematics student and for my minor I wanted to do something completely different, where I could still in a way use my technical skills. Because I was always interested in sustainability and how we could make an impact, I chose to do this minor. I expected that it was more focused on how to build an actual windfarm, but instead the attention was more on why we would build a wind farm and what the challenges are on management level. So for half a year, I was not solving complicated calculations, but more looking at how we can apply all the theoretical knowledge we have.

We got lectures from, and collaborated with, different companies that are active in the offshore energy branch. And the course that appealed to me the most, was actually also the most practical one. In this course we had to follow a two day training. The first day, we were playing a game in which we should make the most profit out of a wind farm by using different strategies of asset management. This could be for example, only replace turbines when they are broken, or periodic replacing 10 turbines without looking at how damaged it is. The second day, we got in the life of an offshore maintenance man. We learned how to extinguish different kind of fires and we also took a swimming course in a survival suit, which was mostly very fun.

I could tell you much more about the experiences I had in this minor, but to conclude: when you want to do a multidisciplinary minor in which you learn about a specific way to improve the environment, you definitely should choose this minor.

Minor Abroad

Sterre Lutz, CS (Australia), 2019-2020

After two years of serious studying in good ol’ Delft, I decided that it was time to explore a new part of the world! I applied to the minor abroad program and was assigned a spot at the University of Sydney, Australia. Of course I had already heard that Australia was a beautiful country, but I figured that I would probably still have to study for most of my time there, just in slightly sunnier weather. Oh boy, was I wrong…

If you do your minor at USYD, you usually choose four courses that last the full semester. I chose two second-year mathematics courses (Analysis and Cryptography), the computer science course Human-Computer Interaction, and a philosophy course called Society, Knowledge and Self. In retrospect, I chose relatively challenging courses compared to other students doing a minor abroad. (Protip: choose the course Outdoor Education, where you just go on hikes in National Parks and write a few reports!) I would estimate the entire semester cost me on average 25 hours per week, for 15 weeks in total. Yes, do the math, that’s nothing compared to two full quarters at the TU Delft. So I’m sure you’re wondering, what on earth did I do during my time in Sydney?

Travel, travel, travel! I figured that I probably wasn’t going to be back in Australia for a while, so I decided to travel until time and money ran out. I drove up to the beautifully sunny Queensland coast to sail on the Great Barrier Reef, I road tripped around Tasmania to explore hidden rain forests and laugh at its peculiar wildlife, and I flew inland to hike in unforgiving heat and sleep under the crystal clear night skies of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. I know it sounds like an Australian tourism add, but truly, those were sights I will remember forever.

As amazing as it was to explore the more remote parts of Australia, it was always just as special to come back home to the hustle and bustle of Sydney. For me personally, there is just nothing quite like taking the first Sunday ferry out to Watsons Bay for a morning hike and being back in Newtown in a cute second-hand book cafe by noon. I’m certain there is a perfect day for everyone hidden in the streets of Sydney, and I highly recommend you go out and find it!

Hiba Abderrazik, CS (Denmark), 2019-2020

I spent last semester abroad in Denmark at Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU). I am excited to share my experience with the country and my travels.

There are a ton of ways to spend time in Copenhagen. Of course, the architecture and history of the city, and Denmark in general, are fascinating and beautiful. Some museums I loved are the National Museum (if you want to learn a bit about the history of Denmark), the Design Museum, Glyptotek (for some classic sculptures) and the Botanical Garden. Apart from that I spent a lot of my time travelling in and around Denmark! I visited Mons Klint, Helsingor, Malmö in Sweden (45 minutes by train from Copenhagen), Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki. I also became a member of ESN (European Student Network) while I was there, meaning I could join several parties and trips organized by the network.
All of these activities were even more special because I got to do them with all of the amazing friends I made during my stay abroad. I met most people at Introduction Week. After that, I just met a lot of new people through those friends, at parties and in class. Being in a foreign country by myself I discovered a whole new social side of myself. I have found other people on exchange and even locals to be very open and interested in meeting new people like myself. I am extremely pleased to have built a set of friends all over the world, as well as strengthened my academic and professional network on an international level.

Overall, Denmark and especially DTU encourages people from all over the world to study there. The facilities at the university are great, as well as the student funding and compensation from the government, healthcare, public transport, etc. There is a very realistic possibility that I would go back to do a Master at DTU or even to find a job in Denmark. I have grown to love the country and the people, even the rain and cold. Looking back on my stay abroad I learnt way more than I thought I would, in many different facets in my life. I don’t believe I would have gotten this experience if I had stayed in Delft.

Tom Saveur, CS (Sweden), 2019-2020

Last semester I went to a far and cold place called Sweden, where I studied in a city called Gothenburg. I did some courses in computer science, mainly focussing on design and security. And while I could bore you with anything concerning actual studying, I’d much rather tell you about all the trips I made.

Usually, I went to a pub in the city center about 1 or 2 times a week with some friends. Here we could enjoy the worst thing in Sweden: the alcohol prices. We thought this is because of the short days. In the first week, even before university started, I went with a group of friends to some islands close to Gothenburg city, where we enjoyed the view and went to a beach to swim. And don’t forget the famous Swedish saunas, where you go to warm up before you jump into an ice lake.

During one visit to the city my wallet got stolen, and this event resulted in me having to take another trip. A trip to the capital to get a new ID card at the embassy. I woke up at 4 in the morning to catch the first train up to Stockholm, where I spend a lovely day trying to forget about the things that happened a couple of nights before.

And now the best trip of them all, going up to the Swedish Lappland to look at the Northern Lights and enjoy the snow. While up there it was freezing cold, about -10C to be exact, because of this there was also a lot of snow and ice. While we were there for a full week, we enjoyed many things, like looking at fjords, going to the ice hotel, going to Norway, going on a snowmobile tour, and dog sledging. The best thing of them all was looking at the Northern Lights but, unfortunately, we could only do this on one of the seven days, because of the bad weather on the other days.

Simone Vis, AM (Australia), 2018-2019

Hi, my name is Simone Vis and I am currently 21 years old and a third-year bachelor student Applied
Mathematics. From July till December 2018, I went on exchange as part of my minor abroad to the University
of Sydney in Australia. I always wanted to study abroad and preferably outside of Europe. I chose to sign up
for universities in English-speaking countries because it would be easier to choose courses. After
registration, I was accepted at the first university of my preference, the University of Sydney. Then came
the arrangements such as choosing courses, arranging housing and a student visa. I chose to take economic
(math) courses because I wanted to broaden my horizons in economics.

The University of Sydney is a great university with 60,000 students from which around 25 percent are
international, most of whom are Asians or Europeans. This gives you the possibility to get to know new
cultures and make friends all over the world. I am still in contact with some friends. The university also
offers courses in almost all fields and not specifically for technical studies, which is great if you want
to follow courses in different fields.

All courses are fairly easy to follow, which allowed me to do many other things besides my studies. For
example, I learned to scuba dive, I became a member of an outdoor association to enjoy hiking, snorkeling,
and camping in the nature around Sydney and I undertook many fun activities with other exchange students. I
had a great time in Sydney, but one person can adapt more easily than another. What is the best tip to feel
at home on the other side of the world? Build up your circle of friends and life there as quickly as
possible and enjoy it, because it’s over before you realize it.

Moreover, the semester already finishes at the end of November, which gives you the opportunity to travel
for 2 months afterward. At least, this is what I and many of my friends did because there is a real
backpacker culture in Australia.

So if you are interested in making friends all over the world, exploring other cultures and studying in a
completely new setting, then studying abroad will definitely be something for you!

Daniël van Gelder, CS (Singapore), 2018-2019

For my minor, I decided to take a leap of faith and go study abroad. During the last semester, I spent my
time studying at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU). I had an unbelievably great time and
an experience of a lifetime! Not only did I get to meet some awesome people, but also got to travel around
Asia and see many great things. However, studying was, of course, the most important part of my time there.
For my minor, I took five courses: three computer science courses, an economics course, and a Chinese
language course. It was a lot of fun studying Chinese and although I only learned the bare basics, the
course was really interesting. As for the other courses, they were less interesting as the level wasn’t that
high and the content not that interesting. The workload was in general lower than in Delft. This gave me a
lot of opportunities to travel and do cool stuff in Singapore itself. Singapore is a really interesting
country and is a kind of hub for Southeast Asia, this means that you can do a lot of cultural stuff there.
On the other hand, it is a very modern country where you can do lots of shopping and partying. I got to do a
lot of traveling around Asia and got to visit amazing countries. The countries I got to visit were:
Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. There are, however, many other countries that I would
like to have visited but didn’t get the chance to travel to. I would recommend anyone to study abroad for
their minor, it is an amazing experience where you learn a lot. I’m very glad I took the opportunity to go
to Singapore and would do it all over again.

Eva Slingerland, AM (Sweden), 2018-2019

Hi, my name is Eva and I am a third-year BSc Applied Mathematics student. For my minor, I decided to go
abroad since that has always been something that I wanted to do. I ended up going to Stockholm, which was
exactly what I wanted!

So, I spent a semester at the Kungliga Tekniska högskolan in Stockholm. Most of the courses there are 7.5
ECTS, so for my minor, I had to choose 4 courses. I ended up taking a Swedish language course, two machine
learning courses that were part of the mathematics master there, and a course about the theory and
methodology of science. It was really interesting to see how other universities organize their lectures and
exams. For example, the exams there are 5 hours, which is crazy! I was completely exhausted after such an
exam, but on the other hand, I never ran out of time so I could always finish all the exercises. I also
noticed that the courses didn’t demand as much work as what I am used to in Delft and that our university is
very highly respected. When I told people that I study at TU Delft, they were really impressed and a lot of
students I talked to told me they applied there but didn’t get in.

Next to the studying, I also joined a choir called Osqstämman and THS MAIN, which is an association for
master and international students. With the choir, I got extra practice in my Swedish since a lot of the
songs were Swedish, and some of them we even had to study by heart. We had weekly rehearsals, a few choir
weekends and several performances. For one of the performances, we worked together with an orchestra and
ballet group, so that was really cool! With THS MAIN, I organized and participated in pub nights, a beer
pong tournament, a karaoke evening, a pub crawl and a big Christmas dinner and party. Apart from that, I
also made a lot of trips to the neighbouring countries, so I visited Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Russia.

Timo van Asten, CS (America), 2017-2018

Hello reader,
I’m Timo, and to start off I would like to say: if you got the chance to do so, go abroad for your minor. It
was an experience I will never forget, and I met many people that gave me so much energy, love, and
friendship. For my minor, I went to the University of Maryland; a university close to Washington DC. It was
a decision I took somewhat impulsively, but I am so glad I made the decision to go. A friend texted me that
the deadline for a minor abroad was 2 days later, and I did not pay attention to this deadline at all. In
the short time that I had, I wrote a motivation letter and did some research. The University of Maryland
ended up in my top three. Four days later I received an email that I was selected to go, and 7 months later
I got onto a plane to the US. It is amazing how refreshing it is to get away from the daily routine.
Everything you see is new. Everyone you meet is new. American college life is so different from ours, which
you notice in a few things. The whole campus is like a big town, where students are the only citizens, and
this makes it ridiculously easy to make new friends. There is a party around every corner (yes, also the
frat party’s you see in the movies). You don’t cook or do the dishes, but there is one big dining hall where
all the students eat and all of this is done for you. About every two weeks, there is an American football
match which you can go to free of charge. Everyone dresses up in UMD clothing and students have drinks
together from the back of their car, called ‘tailgating’. It is one of the most exciting days on campus
called ‘game day’ and it is so cool to experience this yourself. I got to see Washington DC, New York,
Chicago, and Miami …. and of course, you also study, but you don’t even notice that you are. Studying
abroad was just what I needed to bring back my joy in studying. It has changed me as a person and living in
another country for 4 months makes you appreciate things about your own country you didn’t even know were
special. Just go!

Free Minor

Koen van Arem, AM (Mathematics), 2020-2021

Hi! I am Koen van Arem, a 3rd year bachelor student of Applied Mathematics. This year, I finished a so-called free minor. A the name says, you are free to choose which courses you would like to do in your minor. In principle, this could be almost any course, although the total of the courses should be approved by the exam committee. Because of the freedom in this minor, it does not really have a structure.
The fact that I was allowed to choose my own courses made it possible for me to include more mathematical courses in my bachelor. The courses I followed were Fourier Analysis, Algebra 2 (Leiden), Mathematical Seminar, History of Mathematics and Statistical Learning (Leiden). Most of those courses are free electives for the bachelor AM in Delft which I couldn’t have followed without this minor.

I chose the courses Fourier Analysis, Mathematical Seminar and Algebra 2 as they treat some really beautiful mathematics. History of Mathematics was really interesting since it learns you how mathematics has developed over the years. This provides context on the material of other courses. Statistical Learning was a much more applied course which illustrated for me how the knowledge of mathematics can be really helpful in other types of problems.
I took courses in both Delft and Leiden. This was a really great experience since these universities have different styles of teaching. Experiencing these different styles was refreshing. On top of this, it gives the possibility to get to know new people with different, but similar, backgrounds. This was really enjoyable and helped in the orientation of my further study choices.

In general, a free minor provides you with the freedom of choosing your own courses. This gives the possibility to have more depth in your mathematics bachelor. It could also be used to follow courses which are necessary to follow certain masters. A free minor is really flexible which is an important benefit. On the other hand, it is all up to you to organise the minor. This can be a little bit more work. I would recommend this minor to students who would like to follow more mathematical courses or need more flexibility in their minor.

Joep de Jong, AM (Computer Science), 2020-2021

Hello. My name is Joep de Jong and I study Applied Mathematics. Inspired by the testimonial of Vera Martens in the MaCHazine (Volume 23, issue 3 of 2019) I decided to follow a bridging program to Computer Science and Engineering during my bachelor. I was not sure yet if I want to study CS or AM afterwards, but by following the program in this manner, I was able to choose between both masters without “loosing” a year on bridging after my bachelor.

Since this year, the bridging program is a fixed program without electives. It consists of 9 courses, all worth 5 EC. I got an exemption for 3 courses I already followed at AM: Reasoning and Logic (Mathematical Structures “light”), Algorithms and Data Structures (first year elective) and Object-oriented Programming (in Python). So, I ended up doing 6 courses and 30EC in total, which fits in a free minor, but is spread over the whole year.

In Q3 of my second year I followed Information and Data Modeling and Automata, Languages and Computability. Since I already had quite some experience with databases, I was able to pass the IDM course without having followed the pre-knowledge course Web and Databases (Q2). This course will be tough if you do not know anything about SQL and how databases work. ALC took me more effort, I went a lot to the labs and practice lots of exercises. At this course, you have to prove a lot, so your AM skills can give you an advantage over CSE students, who do not understand induction. I followed these two courses besides PDE and Numerical Methods 1. I decided to move the second-year elective to the first semester of my third year to make time for this.

In the fourth quarter I followed Software Quality and Testing, here you learn to test your Java code. I did not have any experience with Java prior to this course, but if you understand the concepts of object-oriented programming well, this course should be doable. I followed SQT besides PDE, Numerical Methods 1 and Complex Function Theory. Unfortunately, due to Covid, the exam of ALC was moved to Q4, so I ended up doing 5 courses. This was a bit too much and I would strongly discourage this.

Then, my 3rd year bachelor, or actually the beginning of the minor (period): In Q1 I only took Machine Learning. Half of this course is a project (in Python), which is really fun to do. The other half is more theoretical about classifiers and a bit of statistics. As said previously, I got an exemption for OOP, but when you do not have a lot of programming experience, it is helpful to do this course before starting Software Engineering Methods.

Now only two courses remained: Software Engineering Methods and Web and Database technology. I already had a lot of experience in web development, so for me this course was not that difficult. SEM was more time consuming. This course mainly exists of a group project in Java. OOP can help a lot here, but some people in my group also learned programming in Java during this course. Since I skipped the elective in my second year, I followed Fourier Analysis along these bridging courses in Q1 and Q2.

Overall, I loved doing the bridging program, especially since the application of the courses is way clearer than at AM. In almost every course you learn something which you can directly apply when you start programming. If you are planning on bridging to computer science, and already have experience in programming, then I would definitely recommend this free-minor bridging program!

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