Juan Castrillon is an alumni of one of our master programmes, Embedded Systems Engineering, and this week we had a chance to invite him for an interview. 

💬Hi Juan! Nice to meet you. Tell us please a bit about yourself. 

«My name is Juan and I am Colombian. I studied the Embedded Systems Engineering master programme at the FH Dortmund. Before coming to Germany I did a bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering back in Colombia. Then I had roughly a year worth of experience working as an independent contractor in different IoT projects for small companies. My experience was mostly related to hardware and computer design.»

💬Why did you choose your master’s programme?  Did your expectations come true? 

«My main reason for choosing this programme was that I wanted to steer my career in a more software-oriented direction. One of the deciding factors was the fact that one of the electives was exclusively focused on the Internet of Things (IoT) which is a topic I am very interested in. 

My expectations did come true in a way. For one, I was expecting the programme to focus a lot on microcontrollers or similar, but that was not the case. However, the focus of the programme and my electives, together with my choice for project and master thesis allowed me to really shift my focus towards software as I wanted initially.»

💬What did you like most about the master?

«The Internet of Things and Edge Computer subjects, and Prof. Schuster really did a difference. Because of the topics, I was exposed to there, I found a field which interested me very much and which turned into my job now.»

💬Who do you think this programme suits and who wouldn’t be a good match? 

«I think the programme is a good fit for people that already have a software background, given that the main focus of the programme is on software and not hardware as the name might imply.»

💬Tell us a little bit about your life after graduation. What do you do now? Was it difficult to find a job? 

«After graduation, finding a job was relatively easy. The experience I gathered by doing my project and master thesis, as well as the topics I was interested in the masters, played a big role in me finding a job.»

💬Can you share some tips with students who’re about to finish their studying and are aiming to start their careers?

«I would say that you should start applying for jobs even before you finish and just let them know an estimate of time. Worst case, if they cannot wait for you, you get an idea of how much demand is on the job market for what you want to do. Best case, you have a job waiting for you after finishing :)»