Business & Entrepreneurship

I believe that this is one of my best developed competencies. I gained knowledge by participating in a lot of electives, on for instance product marketing, financials, product platforms, innovation processes, corporate entrepreneuship, etc. I also had a lot of meetings with experts, took responsibility for the business aspect in almost every project, and helped other people with their business aspects. During my FBP, I designed specifically with business in mind, by thinking of a business model at every step and create value for all parties involved.

 

Creativity & Aethetics

I learned a lot about brainstorming, and translating a problem, an opportunity or research into a design. This was mostly during my projects, but also in committee work, at the Dutch Design Week expo, and at all other occasions where creativity and brainstorming was needed to solve problems or jump in on opportunities.

 

My aesthetics skills have been developed when designing interfaces for various projects and electives, and of course when making a showcase like this. During my USE project and during my FBP, I learned a lot about formgiving when designing physical interfaces. On top of that, I also made countless posters and graphics for committees.

 

Technology & Realisation

I learned about electronics and programming when making prototypes for my projects, mainly in my B1.1 and during my Final Bachelor Project, and also during my USE, again when making a prototype. An extracurricular elective 'Physics of light and design' taught me about physics of light, light levels, CCT values, etc. Furthermore, I gained basic technological knowledge in Bachelor Courses like Calculus and Applied Physics.

 

I learned about realisation during many of my projects, when making prototypes. I also took part in an elective about mechanical engineering, and I learned a lot about plastic engineering when I organised the DSM brainstorm, and when 3D printing the demonstrator for my final bachelor project.

 

User & Society

I did a lot of user testing during every project, especially the Mirrorcle project, and participated in several electives (like User Focus Basics and Design for the User Experience), where I gained a lot of knowledge and experience on this competency. I also learned a lot from reading the 'Lean Startup' book by Eric Ries, explaining how and when to (user)test your products to optimise efficiency.

 

Societal knowledge comes from designing for users who are in different situations than I am, for instance when we designed for children with cancer in my B1.2 project, and I have travelled and am travelling abroad a lot.

 

Teamwork & Communication

During my FBP, I learned that I am a team player. Each team brings along new opportunities, challenges, problems and experiences. I’m more productive in a team, more motivated, more structured, and I don’t like working on my own. Mirrorcle made me realise that you need a multi-disciplinary team to continue a project and realise it, not just designers, however different their areas of expertise are.

 

Communication is one of my strengths, which I have practised a lot during my bachelors. Making promotional campaigns for Mirrorcle in TU/e Contest, presenting countless times in front of juries or investors for electives and projects and the TU/e Contest. Organising the Mind the Step expo and involving many parties in the process, being student assistant in the faculty promotion team, setting up communication structures in the committees, and many more activities.

 

Math, Data & Computing

Bachelor College Courses like Calculus, Applied Physics and Modeling taught me a great deal about this competency. The elective Mechanical Engineering taught me about calculating strengths in constructions and about software analysis. From fellow students, I learned how to make programming easier when making a model of the software with functions and how they are related. Furthermore, I always modelled data flow schemes, value flows and other models for technology or business related aspects to visualise these flows.

 

Self-directed & Continuous Learning

I started during the previous educational system, where our faculty had no obligatory basic courses  (except for Bachelor College), and where students were expected to take initiative in defining what they wanted to learn, and plan how to do that. Because we had so much responsibility for planning and executing our own development, I learned to be proactive, take initiative, and plan my own activities very well. I am very eager to learn, and I’m very ambitious, so this sometimes leads me to take on more than I can handle, but these are again learning experiences.

 

Design & Research Processes

I learned a lot about this competency during design processes in projects, planning iterations at the beginning of the semester, structuring the design process by giving yourself weekly deadlines, and adapting these plannings if something went better or worse than expected. I also applied knowledge gained from books, papers, forums, etc. in project and other activities, to give scientific argumentation to design choices.