"Grab as many opportunities to learn while you are still studying. I believe it will make the start of your career go a lot smoother."
Hey everyone, my name is Sasmita Santoso and I am a Software engineer, born and raised
in Indonesia. I graduated in 2018 from the Inholland University of Applied Science. I choose the course Applied Mathematics / Data Science for the simple reason of liking mathematics and wanting to pursue a career doing what I love. In addition, the plethora of job opportunities in the market looked like a double win and hence chose this course.
‘I enjoyed the mathematics and logic this course offers’
I always deemed it important that the course would enable me to land a well-regarded internship, allowing me to grow and later be accepted in a company. I personally believed it allowed me to write an excellent graduation assignment worthy of being an excellent steppingstone for my career. The course was indeed a lot of mathematics and logic. For me it was rather enjoyable. I’d say the topics were relevant. When I was still studying, I had a data mining class, which at that moment was a ‘hot topic’. Lecturers knew their subjects and took the time to explain the things that didn’t come natural to me.
Honors program
I also ended up joining the Honors program. I found that the Honors title itself gave me a lot of exposure and opportunities on the job market. Another thing I enjoyed about the honors programme was getting exposed to people from a different study background and culture.
Knowledge grant
Inholland was kind enough to grant me a scholarship during my studies, it helped a lot financing everything. It was called the Knowledge Grant, a very appropriate name indeed.
Deep understanding of algorithms ánd life skill session
Another thing I learned was that we got a group assignment that was from an actual company, it was very much to my likings that we were presented with real time industry problems. The other things I got from the course was great problem-solving skills and a deep understanding and the logic behind algorithms. There were also some great real life skill sessions included in the course, among which how to present yourself and creating a proper CV, I consider these as rather helpful.
My proudest achievement was my graduation assignment. First of all, I was rather lucky that one of my lectures introduced me to the company where I was able to do my graduation assignment, Capgemini a consultancy company. Second, my coach from the university and the company were both rather helpful by answering all my questions and reviewing my work diligently.
Career path
I landed my first job only weeks after I graduated. I worked there for 2 years then move to a
job which has more specific assignments. I’d dare to say with my Applied Mathematics / Data Science profile it was fairly easy to find a job. After that I was an IBM Client Innovation Center Groningen IT specialist and then worked as a Salesforce Developer. Now I work at Casenine as a Software Engineer. I don’t want to say I found my true ambitions yet; I am still looking. I am currently still developing myself as a software engineer. I’d say grab as many opportunities to learn while you are still studying. I believe it will make starting a career go a lot smoother.
