Back from the BioEng @UniCA tour of Dutch Companies and Research Centers!

Five days, 750 km on the Dutch railways for eight visits (two universities, two research centers, two small and medium enterprises, two large companies). Three professors, one PhD student, sixteen students at their last year of the Bachelor course of studies in Biomedical Engineering to understand what will be their way in this field.

From two research centers (Holst Center in Eindhoven and TNO in The Hague) they learned what applied research means, real devices, real applications, real challenges. They liked it.

Visiting two universities (TU Eindhoven, Uni Maastricht) we got in touch with very interesting researches and they also understood the difference between our education systems, the difficulty of finding 1 to 1 relations between our course of studies and theirs. Interesting opportunities for PhDs but also masters.

At Medtronic and Philips Healthcare they learned pros and cons of working in a big company, opportunities, the perfect interview and cv. In Philips we touched and understood several medical equipments. In Medtronic, with an Italian researcher who got in touch with former students from Cagliari, it was easy to discuss about career and the possibility of following their dreams.

Visting two SMEs (XSENS and TMSI), the students experienced on themselves their products and connected them to what they studied in University courses on medical instrumentation. In XSENS we met Michele Crabolu our former PhD students who, the day after his PhD decided to accept to work so far from his birthplace. With him our student had the possibility of discussing about what are the perspective of their studies in the labor market and their future lives.

In conclusion, for our students it was a good opportunity to compare themselves with what is going on in Europe in their field, have a global view, understand that they have all the possibilities and instruments to emerge in research/labor European market. The importance of developing a real knowledge beyond the score obtained at exams. I’m sure they will exploit the occasion they had!