Casper Heijkoop, Computer Science student at Leiden University of Applied Sciences, has now been working at organisation consultancy firm The Next Organisation (TNXTO) for over eight months. In conversation with Consultancy.nl, the young professional shares his experiences.
As an interaction technologist, Casper focuses his education on areas such as design and user experience. During his studies he has worked with multiple programming languages and applied them to an number of projects.
Eight months ago, Casper additionally started as an intern at TNXTO, a strategic consulting firmau from Bussum specialising in improving commercial performance of organisations.
After five months in the role of trainee, Casper is now farr gone as a work tudent within TNXTO's IT department - "because I was
had a great time at TNXTO," he explains. "Not having an internship assignment from school hanging over my head and
collaborating with colleagues more often as a working student pleases.
In his current role, he is mainly involved in developing technical solutions for TNXTO clients. Among the consultancy's clients are notable names v
inden as ING, Jaguar Landrover, Heineken, MCI, Alzheimer's Netherlands and several universities.
Casper has had the opportunity to help build various digital solutions for several projects in recent months. "From my studies, my specialisation is in front-end developments, which means I mainly work on how a website or application looks and how it is easy to use," he explains. "I have since collaborated on several websites and applications for TNXTO clients. I also created a comprehensive design for one of our applications, which I then started to develop into a prototype with a colleague."
Casper is not the only working student within TNXTO, which consists of some 20 professionals. The team, which includes experienced strategists, marketers, economists, (technical) business experts and IT specialists, also regularly includes talented young professionals, interns and work students. And that provides a nice source of knowledge, Casper says. "The work students I have worked with have already spent quite some time at TNXTO. As a result, they already have a lot of work experience so I see them more as employees than work students. One of these work students is also part of the IT team and I learn a lot from him."
Looking back on his time as an intern and working student, Casper says he gained valuable knowledge and experience for his future career: "Besides the technical skills I was able to work on a lot, I also learned a lot about working together with colleagues. Meetings and working together on the same project, for example, are experiences that I gained a lot from."
Want to know more about what it's like to work as a working student at The Next Organisation? Or would you like to talk about this or other topics based on this article? Then feel free to get in touch for a (digital) cup of coffee with Casper or one of his colleagues.