Personal development

Adopting purposeful, methodological and reproducible approaches, offshore & dredging engineers build on existing knowledge by making use of theory, experiments and models, for instance based on the finite-element method and computational fluid dynamics.

As a result of digitalisation, the amount of available monitoring data has expanded tremendously and needs to be interpreted and used coherently, for instance in digital twin applications and remote operations.

All these aspects involve uncertainty, meaning that offshore & dredging engineers adopt a probabilistic perspective in their problem-solving and apply reliability-based design approaches and risk-assessment techniques. From an ethical point of view, offshore & dredging engineers are expected to consider their activities in relation to the potential environmental impact of offshore developments – accounting for the environmental footprint over the complete structural life-time – as well as the societal impact of unexpected events, such as system failures after a natural disaster.

Future offshore & dredging engineers will operate in international, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams. To prepare students for such settings, the educational programme addresses the required skills – such as writing and presenting – ensuring effective communication, and logical reasoning and arguing, while accounting for alternative opinions. In this respect, it is important that the engineers know how to communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences. These skills contribute to a critical and open-minded attitude, and capability to give and receive constructive feedback.

Moreover, future leaders in society with an engineering background should be able to identify, define, analyse and contribute constructively and responsibly to solve current and future complex societal challenges. This requires the skills to reflect on your own role with others in (multi- and interdisciplinary) projects and towards processes in interaction with societal impact.

Graduation from the MSc programme Offshore & Dredging Engineering should not be perceived as an end, but as a starting point for a successful professional career. In short, students finishing the programme are curious, self-dependent and self-confident learners, ready to shape the society of the future.