MSc in Global Development at University of Copenhagen

We are looking for a variety of students. The main attribute any student should have is a motivation to work with people who they haven't worked before. But I'm talking about people who would like to go out and make a difference. I was looking for an interdisciplinary studies because you can never just group one issue into one research area or one discipline. If you really want to be part of the whole ecosystem around development then you need to be aware not only of cultural or social issues but also know how to read a report that is based on economic statistics or whatever. So getting that kind of comprehensive broad knowledge I would say is important for you to engage in the field in general. I chose the course at KU mainly because it appealed to me being very practical. I wanted interaction with other students and with the professors and therefore I also liked the fact that with the second year you have the opportunity to make it your own through taking an internship, elective courses and the thesis. I was really interested by the fieldwork that we're going to do. We're going to Tanzania working on the field and actually getting practical knowledge. Usually the lectures are delivered by two teachers from different disciplines so the idea is to tackle an issue from different perspectives and gain insights from two different research approaches. A lot of times we had somebody from the economic side and somebody from the anthropology side which really showed me that you can well start to approach a problem or an issue in many different ways and also ways of understanding the issue can also vary. Of course it's been a challenge to begin with all these new disciplines on a master's level in some areas where you have no experience from before but still I think they started out by saying that we should just keep on fighting and believe in steep learning curves and I actually think that has proven to be true. There's a lot of group work at the Global Development and that can also be a challenge for some people but again in the end I think that is something that people really learn a lot from because people work together with people that come from other backgrounds and I think that you really learn a lot as a student here not only from the teachers but also from the other students. I really like that because it replicates what you face in real life working in teams, working through problems, having to figure stuff out by yourself. And I suppose that's going to prepare us for the real world because that's how it's going to be and you get to work with anthropologists, business students, economic students which you normally wouldn't do. So it's very multidisciplinary and you get to get like a wider view into the same context. In our third semester on the second part there we have a research and fieldwork course and this year we are going to Tanzania. The aim of this course is that we get our hands on doing real fieldwork, being in the field, engaging with people and probably dealing with all possible things who turn up. And this course we are divided into three groups, three different topics all in the same area of Tanzania related to agriculture, wildlife conservation and forestry management. And it is a really nice setup because we can find in our own little groups of four to five students we are supposed to find our own research question and find a way how to get the data to answer this question. It's going to be a challenge, we're probably going to have arguments, it could pour with rain, we could miss the bus, any number of things could happen. But it's coming at the end of the year and it's going to be a really nice end to this year in Copenhagen to spend it with other people working on something interesting and then probably a nice little trip to Zanzibar at the end. So I'm really looking forward to it. We are on a campus university and it's like your own little world. You have everything there from coffee to canteen to bookshop. It creates this really nice study environment where you can be together and you see each other all the time and people stay together for a longer time. So I think that's a really nice setup. The campus is in a great location just outside of the city centre and also near to Nørrebro which is a really nice area. The Danes like to think it's ghetto but it's really not. It's a fun place to be, lots of good bars and cafes and when the weather is nice there's lots of parks to hang out or you can just go and sit by the lakes on the bridge and it's a nice place to be. And otherwise I remember the first day arriving in Copenhagen it was really sunny and I rented a bike and I biked through the Nørrebro bridge and I felt really starting to live here being in the waiting line on a bike highway to cross the street which was a new thing for me. Being a native English speaker all of my other languages are absolutely terrible so Copenhagen's a really easy place to get by with English. Whilst I would have loved to have the time to get to learn some Danish it really hasn't proved necessary. There's no doubt that everyone applying for this program and getting into this program are very independent and strong people. They've made a decision to move away from what they did do. Most of them have made a decision to move physically, come to Copenhagen and do their studies and they have made a decision of challenging their own beliefs and their discipline. I think this tells you that they believe in what they do.