Student testimonial
Hidde Politiek - Master Economics of Sustainability
It was a logical choice to follow this Master programme and deepen my knowledge in environmental and agricultural economics and policy.
Learning in Wageningen does not stop outside the study programme; there is much more to discover.
Before the master I was already a student at Wageningen University and followed the Dutch BSc programme Economie en Beleid. Since I am still excited and interested in the topics of my bachelor and feel at home in Wageningen, it was a logical choice to follow this Master programme and deepen my knowledge in environmental and agricultural economics and policy.
In my masters I chose to further specialize in agricultural economics and policy, and developed myself as a “Wageningen economist”. In both my Master thesis and the internship, the applied quantitative skills came in useful and I could apply them directly in the research and in practice. The highlight of the Master programme for me was my internship, where I went to Brussels for 4 months to work at the European Commission on EU fisheries policies. I really felt that the combination of understanding both economics and policymaking was very useful in this environment. It was so rewarding to apply the skills I learned after all these years of studies, and to see how useful they are in the practice of EU policy making.
Learning in Wageningen does not stop outside the study programme; there is much more to discover. For example, I had the opportunity to be a student-assistant, where I helped with research and assisted with computer practicals. Besides that, I had always played with the idea of starting a start-up one day, so I decided that during the Master I should give it a try. With two co-founders we started a new brand of sustainable cereal bars with upcycled ingredients. Finally, in the summer of 2020 we launched the product throughout the Netherlands. It was an unbelievably valuable experience to start with something from scratch and finally see the product on the supermarket shelves after months of hard work. Wageningen has a great environment for these kind of start-up initiatives, for example through the StartHUB and StartLife, but also for many other activities such as boards, associations, and student jobs.