Right af­ter com­ple­ting our dual ba­che­lor’s de­gree in ap­pli­ed com­pu­ter sci­ence at DHBW, Ni­klas and I knew that we wan­ted to con­ti­nue our stu­dies. Not at some point in the fu­ture, but im­me­dia­te­ly af­ter­wards. Tha­t’s why we de­ci­ded to start a mas­ter’s de­gree in com­pu­ter sci­ence at DHBW CAS.

Our mo­ti­va­ti­on was cle­ar­ly struc­tu­red. On the one hand, we wan­ted to deepen our spe­cia­list know­ledge and spe­cia­li­ze in spe­ci­fic are­as. On the other hand, we see the mas­ter’s de­gree as an im­portant foun­da­ti­on for our fur­ther pro­fes­sio­nal de­ve­lo­p­ment. In ad­di­ti­on to se­cu­ring good care­er op­por­tu­ni­ties, per­so­nal in­te­rest in fur­the­ring our know­ledge also plays a cen­tral role.

Mas­ter’s de­gree along­side pro­fes­sio­nal activity

We con­ti­nue to work full-time at TecAlliance and also at­tend the mo­du­les at the DHBW. The cour­se is or­ga­ni­zed in blocks. For each mo­du­le, we at­tend two to th­ree th­ree-day blocks of clas­ses. This usual­ly amounts to about two blocks per month. Our clas­ses take place in Mann­heim, Stutt­gart, and Heil­bronn. Heil­bronn is the main lo­ca­ti­on of the CAS.

In terms of con­tent, we have opted for ar­chi­tec­tu­re, soft­ware de­ve­lo­p­ment, and IT se­cu­ri­ty, among other to­pics. We find it par­ti­cu­lar­ly ex­ci­ting to learn about cur­rent stra­te­gies and tech­no­lo­gies with a clear fo­cus on dis­tri­bu­ted sys­tems. Much of the con­tent can be di­rect­ly in­te­gra­ted into our dai­ly work, crea­ting a di­rect prac­ti­cal relevance.

Claims and organization

The mas­ter’s pro­gram chal­lenges us both aca­de­mi­cal­ly and or­ga­niza­tio­nal­ly. De­man­ding to­pics, sci­en­ti­fic depth, re­gu­lar as­sign­ments, and li­mi­t­ed time re­sour­ces re­qui­re a struc­tu­red ap­proach to work. Good plan­ning is cru­cial, espe­ci­al­ly du­ring in­ten­si­ve phases.

Team­work is a key fac­tor in our suc­cess. In ad­di­ti­on to Ni­klas and me, Ju­lia is also part of our mas­ter’s pro­gram. From the very be­gin­ning, we had a firm plan to start our stu­dies tog­e­ther. Sin­ce we get along very well with Ju­lia and she was still un­de­ci­ded, we con­vin­ced her to take this step with us. Chal­lenges can be over­co­me more ef­fi­ci­ent­ly in a group than alone.

We learn tog­e­ther, work on pro­jects tog­e­ther, and each con­tri­bu­te our in­di­vi­du­al strengths. Our col­la­bo­ra­ti­on has not ch­an­ged fun­da­men­tal­ly as a re­sult of our stu­dies, as we al­re­a­dy work­ed well tog­e­ther be­fo­re. Nevert­hel­ess, the shared aca­de­mic chall­enge fur­ther streng­thens our team spirit.

Sup­port wi­thin the company

We also re­cei­ve sup­port wi­thin the com­pa­ny. Ex­pe­ri­en­ced col­le­agues and for­mer gra­dua­tes are available to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons and share their ex­pe­ri­en­ces. This ex­ch­an­ge makes it much ea­sier to com­bi­ne work and study.

For pro­s­pec­ti­ve stu­dents who would like to start at TecAlliance, our path shows that pro­fes­sio­nal de­ve­lo­p­ment is ac­tively en­cou­ra­ged. The mas­ter’s pro­gram is chal­len­ging, but of­fers si­gni­fi­cant ad­ded va­lue both pro­fes­sio­nal­ly and personally.