Throwback Thursday: Marcel Schmitz (class of 2001)

1. Which place marks for you DACS at UM and why?

?There are actually several places that mark DACS (formerly known as Kennistechnologie) at the UM for me. These include the beer tables in our lecture room at Keizer Karelplein, the table tennis tables at LUC in Diepenbeek, and Baylor Landing, the dorm where we, as a group of students, stayed during our summer school visit to Baylor University.

2.?With which professor/teacher from then would you like to drink a coffee with now and why?

Among the professors still at the organization, it would be Professor Ralf Peeters . He was, with all his knowledge and expertise, able to help me and give me confidence in areas that were challenging for me, such as Calculus and Mathematical Modeling. Although his expertise and knowledge on these topics are very high, he still was (and is) able to explain them to students like me, who had difficulties with the basics. But more important he always did this with a lot of patience and understanding smile.

3.?Which class did you love/hate and why?

We had a class that covered both PROLOG and LISP. Although I didn't have difficulties working on it or attending Professor Jos Uiterwijk 's classes, I confused PROLOG and LISP during the exams. I had to take it three times. The first time, I messed up the PROLOG part. The second time, I nailed the PROLOG section but ended up using PROLOG instead of LISP in the LISP part. The third time, I succeeded, but by that point, my enthusiasm had waned.

And I really loved all the project work!

4.?With the benefit of hindsight: what would you advice yourself if you were to start the study now?

Work on your academic English more. It will shorten your master thesis internship with half a year and probably will reduce your external PhD with a year.?

5. For which tasks/opportunities/challenges can other alumni contact you?

For everything that has to do with Applied Data Science and AI, Learning Analytics, but also if you want to get married.