Study experiences Petra Schmitz (1998)
I am studying forest-and nature management and I wanted to tell you something about my study. In the first three years I mainly followed courses with my fellow students. In the beginning of course you get a lot of basic stuff but later on you can also choose subjects yourself. Most of the courses are inside but in the end of the year also outside courses are planned, for example about learning to recognize plants and insects. Being outside is usually the best time!
In Wageningen there are many possibilities to go abroad for an internship and I decided to take this opportunity in the beginning of my fourth year. I made contact with an organization in Bangkok that was working in social forestry (via the Exchange Program of IFSA , the International Forestry Students Association). I have been working there on my own small research about community forestry. In the beginning it was hard to get used to living in Thailand. Especially because I didn’t speak the language and people there are often afraid to speak English. Next to working in the institute in Bangkok I also managed to make some trips outside the city; these were really beautiful!
After this internship I returned to the Netherlands where I followed some more courses. At the end of the fourth year I decided to take a break of one year. During this year I was full-time active in the students sport board of the university (SWU Thymos). and I organized, together with five other students, a lot of activities like mountain bike tour, skiing trip, sports night, tournaments etc. I had a great year!! |
When this year was finished I started my study again in September 2004. I started, next to my regular study, with the 1 year program MSc European Forestry (which is organized by six European universities including Wageningen, now it's a 2 year programme). It was possible to combine this program with my regular program. So at first I did a course in Sweden (Introduction Course European Forestry) for four weeks. After that I had another internship in Koli National Park in Finland. With this internship I gained credits for the MSc European Forestry and also for my regular study. I have been taking snow measurements in the National Park and I worked in the visitor center too. I was living in a house in the forest, with a sauna next to it! Although I sometimes felt lonely experiencing a Finnish winter, where it is dark at four o’clock in the afternoon, is a special experience. After my three months in Finland I followed a two weeks course in Spain in February 2004 which was also part of the MSc European Forestry.
At this moment I am working on my thesis in Wageningen. My thesis is about transboundary co-operation between the Netherlands and Belgium in nature reserves. I want to find out when a transboundary co-operation is successful. I chose one case-study area where I did a lot of interviews with all the organizations in the nature area. Now I am analyzing these interviews; I hope have my thesis finished in November; then I have finished the 1-year program European Forestry too. Then I still have to do another (small) thesis which will be about nature education. I hope to be able to graduate in forest- and nature management in March 2005.
(Note: Petra graduated in 2005) |