Final year Finance & Control student Daan de Ruiter chose to take the ‘Business and Data Analytics’ minor for one main reason: the three-week study trip to Silicon Valley. Together with a group of about forty other students, Daan attended masterclasses at the university, listened to speakers from large, international companies and paid a visit to Silicon Valley. “Something to look back on with pleasure.”
Robert Slot, Daan’s internship supervisor, drew his attention to the ‘Business and Data Analytics’ minor and Daan was immediately enthusiastic. “It is mainly about how to deal with big data,” he explains. “There is so much data available, but how do you translate all of that data so that people can do something with it? In recent years, data analysis has become a really big thing and I wanted to know more about it.”
Trip to America
Daan freely admits however, that he was mostly triggered by the America trip. “The trip was used to promote the minor and I thought it would be a great experience. I thought it was something I didn’t want to miss.” And so he left for Berkeley, California with forty other students who were taking the minor. “It was three intense weeks of attending masterclasses, hearing speakers from companies and visiting companies such as Google Cloud, Nutanix and the Plug and Play Tech Center. It was wonderful to see all of it. We had a busy schedule during the week and we stayed in a hostel about twenty minutes from the university.”
He had never been to America before. “Visiting America had always been on my wish list. I thought it would be cool to see what life is like there. And it is very different than ours. For example, American students are very proud of their university, and that is not really the case in the Netherlands. How they talk about their university and its sports teams... It all means the world to them.”
Something we can look back on with pleasure. We will be doing that too - we have already planned a reunion party.
A different work culture
They also visited Silicon Valley, the area where many tech companies are based. “It was very special to see how things work in those companies. We were able to take a look behind the scenes and the work culture there is so different. Everything revolves around networking, but they are not really interested in each other. We heard a story about someone who said goodbye to their neighbours after living next to them for seven years, but they actually didn’t know each other at all. Lots of students thought it was really great over there and would love to go back again, but it is not for me. I prefer the Netherlands.”
Yosemite National Park
The students also had some free time during their trip to California and so they went exploring. “A group of us visited Yosemite National Park which was really cool. It was a four-hour trip with a hire car but it was fantastic to see it for ourselves.”
So Daan can look back on a very enjoyable trip. “It was an intensive programme: every day there was a lot to do and every morning you went out with forty people you didn’t know very well. But overall, it was a very enjoyable experience. Something to look back on with pleasure. We will be doing that too - we have already planned a reunion party.”
Final presentations
Following seven weeks of workshops at Saxion and three weeks in America, Daan is now doing an eight-week internship at Coulisse Window Coverings in Enter after which he will round off his minor with a final presentation. The students worked on their presentation skills during the study trip. “We worked hard on our presentation skills: on how to hold a two-minute pitch with value-added content. The importance of this was underlined to us every week during the trip,” says Daan. “So I’m sure it will be fine.”
