“With MyFuture Activities we are offering our bachelor's students a great way to become well acquainted with the diversity of their future field of work,” says Ines Lopez Arteaga, Dean of the Bachelor College since last July. “As well as familiarizing themselves with the possibilities that lie ahead, students will find out what the field expects of them, so that while they are still studying, they can prepare themselves.” Lopez Arteaga says that the initiative comes from the students themselves. Getting a feel for the job market at this early stage will enable them to make good choices later, says the dean.

Tom van Teeffelen, a member of the MyFuture team and himself busy completing his Bachelor's of Electrical Engineering, explains how this program came about. “A number of years back, various factors, including the findings of the National Student Survey, led to the conclusion that TU/e needed to offer students more career preparation. This prompted the setting up of the ‘Impulse on Career’ work group. Its membership is drawn from a wide range of groups. The work group investigated which would be the best approach, and their work gave rise to the MyFuture Activities program.”

Broad choice

According to Van Teeffelen, students will enjoy a wide choice of activities during their bachelor's programs. “Things like lectures, workshops and in-house days at companies. A good many parties have pitched in to provide activities, including the study associations, of course; they bring plenty of relevant experience. But Integrand and UniPartners, two student organizations active throughout the Netherlands helping students with internships and job market familiarization, have also joined the MyFuture collective. As has our own Career Academy, where a great selection of programs and workshops are on offer.”

A special review committee, comprising students and university employees, will assess which career activities will be eligible for MyFuture Activities and the value they will be accorded. This varies from 1 to 3. Van Teeffelen explains that the term ‘values' has been adopted in order to avoid confusion with the regular ECTS students have to achieve or can acquire by taking certain elements of the program offered by Studium Generale.

Freedom of choice

“There are no restrictions on which activities a student may choose in order to collect the required number of seven ‘values’. Freedom of choice has been our watchword," says Van Teeffelen. "A student of Biomedical Engineering, for example, is at liberty to take a peek at an in-house day organized by a party other than his or her own study association. This maximizes the breadth of choice available to everyone.” 

The program's start was marred by unfavorable circumstances: the corona pandemic. The number of activities able to take place 'live' this academic year has been, and continues to be, all too few. In-house days and workshops that would normally have been held on location are now being held online.

Van Teeffelen: “Students have had no choice but to become experienced at watching lectures from home, so we anticipate that participating in an online lunchtime lecture will present few problems. Aside from that, all the parties are being highly innovative and enterprising in finding the right approach and in how they present their activities. Admittedly, corona has made things more difficult, but certainly not impossible. The online offering is broad enough for our current first-years, the first group for whom this program has been designed.”

Incidentally, the requirement to have collected seven ‘values’ by the end of the bachelor's does not apply to bachelor's students who started their program before the academic year 2020-2021, adds Van Teeffelen to avoid any confusion. Monday March 29th is the official launch date of MyFuture Activities. An appropriate moment, says Van Teeffelen, and the day's event immediately offers first-years the chance to pick up two ‘values’. He himself is busy completing the system designed to handle the digital registration of all the values collected by students in the coming years.