BK Report
CHOOSING YOUR TRACK Words Nicole van Roij
It is the spring semester again, which means a lot of students are rounding up their bachelor's degrees and face the difficult question: what to do next? Perhaps a gap year or an internship? To directly continue the MSc program students have to choose between one of the five tracks. This decision might be super clear for some students, but can be an obstacle for others. In this article I ask three master students, who've each changed to a different track, to talk about their decisions, doubts and impressions of their past and current track.
On application, students choose one of the five tracks for the duration of their degree: Architecture, Urbanism, Management in the Built Environment, Building Technology or Landscape Architecture. At the moment, the faculty informs students by their website, brochures and multiple master events. However, it seems like 'word of mouth' (stories from students within the tracks) is also helpful for obtaining more detailed information on how things function inside a track. Lena (A to MBE), Karolina (A to U), and Lotte (A to LA) share their experiences and thoughts: Which tracks did you consider and why? Lena: I had a hard time choosing my master track. For a long time, I was doubting between Architecture, Urbanism, the new master MADE of the AMS, Industrial Ecology, a social entrepreneurship master (outside TU Delft) and MBE. Eventually, I started in the Architecture track because I didn’t want to give up on designing. However, after one semester I decided to switch to MBE because Architecture felt like a repetition of the bachelor in Bouwkunde. I really wanted to learn more about our built environment on a strategic, financial and business level.
Karolina: I started in the Architecture track, but quite soon I knew that I wanted to change to Urbanism. This was, to a large extent, my own mistake of not doing a deeper research into the reality of the tracks and programmes. I thought that the choice of subjects within Architecture would be more flexible, so I would be able to head towards working on a larger scale. Unfortunately, the choice of design studios in Architecture is limited by the number of students and the "first come first serve" principle. Also, compulsory subjects such as Building Technology and History of Architecture were, to me, a repetition of topics from my bachelor. Lotte: First, I was in the Architecture track, which I picked mainly because I thought it would offer me the most design perspectives. However, architecture was for me too focused on the building, whereas I was more interested in the space outside the building. I then picked landscape architecture, which I felt was a bit more like that. To me the track offered designing for a more public space, considering more scales, without losing the detail of a design. What are the best things about your track, especially in comparison to the other tracks?
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