USI Program PdEng & Philips design case
Master’s Honors Academy_2017
The Master’s Honors Academy at the TUe is a program created for students that have shown excellence in their Bachelor. The Master’s Honors program has a minimum workload of 20 credits on top of the regular Master’s program. It consists of two interrelated components: personal leadership development (5 credits) and professional development (15 credits). The Personal Leadership component is offered and organized by the TU/e Honors Academy. For the Professional Development component, the student can define her own program: I have decided to choose the track ‘excellence for society and user research’, and so follow 7 modules plus a four weeks internship with the USI program, the TUe post-doctoral program focused on User Experience Design.
During the two years of the Master, activities focused on the professional development were followed by intense one-week long modules from the USI Program. To see an overview of the modules followed within the USI Program, find the link here. During the summer break between the first and second years, a four-week internship at Philips (Amsterdam) has been done.
Participating in the Honors program helped me to gain more experience in organizing my schedule, more connections with the outside-the-university world, and values such as independence, openness, eagerness to learn, drive, passion and perseverance.