Testimonials

"Before MAPS, I finished two Bachelor’s programmes, in culture studies and a teacher training degree in visual arts. Due to this, I aspired to work in higher education as a teacher-researcher, and I knew I wanted the challenge of a research Master’s degree. In MAPS, I found the perfect training for such a career, as well as the academic challenge I  was looking for.

During MAPS, several courses helped me train my research skills, for example in my self-chosen tutorial on online education and in the research internship I did at the LKCA (in Dutch: Landelijk Kennisinstituut Cultuureducatie en Amateurkunst, a research organisation for culture education and amateur arts).

After finishing MAPS, I was very fortunate to find a position as a PhD-candidate at the UU. Currently, I am working on my research project on the ‘Platformisation of Education’, as part of the Governing the Digital Society research group. In this project, I am continuing the research I worked on for my Master’s thesis, critically reflecting on the intra-active relationship between humans and technology from a new materialist feminist perspective.

Despite the content and career opportunity MAPS provides, what made this programme especially worthwhile is the community of students and teachers it is based on. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I spend most of my Master’s programme studying online. As a cohort, we had to work especially hard to create a community. As a group, we helped each other succeed in the programme and I still am incredibly thankful for this communal effort.

Furthermore, these experiences of studying online proved to be a valuable object of study for my thesis research project, in which I looked at inextricable relationship between the body and technology in online learning situations. In case you are interested, you can always look up my thesis under the title ‘The Somatechnics of Emergency Online Education: An Analysis of Synchronous Online Lectures at Dutch Universities during the Covid-19 Pandemic’. What MAPS allowed me to do, especially in my thesis, was bring in my own expertise and interests, and expand it exponentially, allowing me to graduate cum laude.

If working with your own interests whilst expanding your frame of reference sounds good to you, I highly recommend visiting a MAPS Open Day and applying for the programme!"

"During the rMA programme, I have really enjoyed how you are encouraged to create your own programme and thereby explore your own research interests. This flexibility can be seen in the ample room for electives (which you can fill with courses at Utrecht University, but also at other universities or at research schools), as well as in the possibility to set up tutorials with (MAPS) teachers and scholars. I moreover really appreciated how some courses allowed for final assignments to take more creative or para-academic formats; this has been something that productively challenged my thinking when it comes to research methodologies.

This freedom to cater to your own research interest, in combination with being introduced to new ways of practicing research, have all been incredibly valuable in solidifying my own identity as a scholar, but - more practically – have also been very helpful in the buildup to the final thesis, which in my case addressed the political and affective affordances of form (‘#Grid/Locked: Performing Form in and beyond Universalism’, 2023).

At present, I remain affiliated to the university in a coordinating/managerial function, which I hope to soon combine with a new challenge elsewhere in the cultural sector. I do not rule out the possibility of returning to academia in the future to pursue further research, but in any case: I am certain that the analytical skills, interdisciplinary frame of mind and general research/writing skills that MAPS has taught me will be of use in contexts both in and outside of academia!"

"Different teachers with various backgrounds have helped me to sharpen my own academic interests and thoughts, but have also enlightened me in how my approach on media is relevant in the current cultural transformations in our mediatised society. I have, for example, studied how current neuroscientific research affects contemporary studies in the Humanities regarding the perception of theatrical performances, but also how the ongoing evolution of Virtual Reality influences our own knowledge of our bodies.

What I liked most about the programme is how it finds the perfect balance in teaching you new comparative perspectives and giving you the opportunity to compose your own track. In the two years of this programme, I got to study in South Korea for six months, I have visited multiple conferences in Europe, and published in a few journals. The programme does not only help you to become a great scholar, but it most of all encourages you to be the critical academic you want to be."