Kevin Michel
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Alumnus Position Company Graduated Faculty Degree programme Date of the interview |
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Why did you decide to study Mechanical Engineering at Rhine-Waal University?
My path was a bit different than the average German high school graduate. I never went to a Gymnasium, the university-track secondary school in Germany. Instead, I left school at 16 without a university entrance qualification and did an apprenticeship as a chemical operator (Chemikant in German). The apprenticeship was three years long, then I worked as a chemical operator for another three years afterwards. During this time I realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had to work rotating shifts, so I often worked nights, weekends and even on holidays.
After a while, I figured it was time for a change. A lot of my friends back then were studying at a university close to where I worked and they inspired me. Luckily, there is a work-to-university programme in Germany for people like me called Studieren ohne Abitur. Thanks to this programme and a lot of independent study / preparation, I became qualified to apply to universities offering degrees that were very similar to my field of work. I could go for mechanical or process engineering, for example, and mechanical engineering seemed to be a bit broader of a subject, so I decided on that.
As for Rhine-Waal, I was initially very concerned regarding the English language requirement because I was not very proficient. My advice, particularly for people applying without a standard university entrance qualification, is to have a talk with a study representative. I just called Professor Gebel, who was one of the study representatives back then, and he completely put my fears to rest and was the friendliest of all the heads of degree programmes at all the universities I applied to. So in the end I decided to give HSRW a try.
What were your next career steps after graduating from Rhine-Waal?
After graduating from Rhine-Waal, I immediately continued with a master’s degree. My master’s degree even officially started three days before my colloquium happened. I did my master’s at HAW Hamburg in computational methods in mechanical engineering because during my bachelor’s, I discovered a passion for simulation and structural dynamics and I wanted to strengthen it. Furthermore, I wanted to be closer to my family, as it was during COVID and things were quite uncertain. Since I’m from a small town close to Hamburg, this was a natural choice.
I did my master’s thesis with Vestas Wind Systems A/S in Aarhus, Denmark, so I moved to Aarhus. My thesis was about vibro acoustic simulations and structure-born tonality mitigation techniques of wind turbines. Simply put: it was about noise. Afterwards, I applied for a permanent position as an engineer on the same team, which I got, and I’ve been working there ever since. At the moment, I’m also preparing for opportunities to apply for an industrial PhD position, because I want to conduct more research in the aforementioned fields. This PhD would be in a collaboration with Vestas and the University of Aalborg, but it’s still in the preparation phase. I attend regular seminars about vibrations and acoustics at Aalborg and I already found a professor who would like to supervise, but now we need to apply to the Danish Innovation Fund to sponsor part of the PhD costs.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
No day is really the same for me. I work in a very young and agile team and we have a lot of responsibilities. I can tell you more about what I do, but it really varies a lot. Initially, my work was about simulations of wind turbines, naturally with a focus on the vibro acoustic domain, basically wind turbine noise. But that focus shifted very rapidly to a lot of data processing. Now I evaluate and interpret measurement results and form conclusions, potential next steps, et cetera. I also write test requirements for prototypes for the test engineers, e.g. where to place which sensor, and I assist them if things are unclear, so I have a lot of talks with them as well.
The team that I’m on is in Vestas R&D (Research and Development), so of course R&D is a big focus of my work, too. I also conduct research on wind turbine tonality prediction and mitigation, so I’m looking into new ways to calculate these different problems, because the process is still ongoing. And I’m currently also working on my first invention (together with a colleague) and we are doing it within the company. We are currently running some experiments and hope that maybe we can mature our idea sometime in the future.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Looking at how politics and some industries handle the climate catastrophe makes me really worried. I for myself decided to not just complain, but try to be a part that really tries to solve the problems. As a mechanical engineer interested in dynamics, working in the wind industry is a natural choice for me. Over the past years two further motivations developed. Firstly, we see that our (European) energy infrastructure can be harmed by outside forces, if we are too reliant on them. Wind power is one of the best solutions to become safer. Secondly, renewables bring electricity prices down which helps especially people with middle and lower incomes.
What I enjoy most is that I can learn new and very exciting stuff every day. Within my team I have the freedom to decide on what I think is the best plan of action and get to it. I can identify problems and try to find solutions myself. That is really nice. Vibro acoustics itself is a quite complicated discipline, especially structure-borne sound. It requires quite a lot of fundamentals and I really enjoy diving deep into a complicated topic. It’s a personal character thing I have, I guess. And at the same time, hopefully, I can have a positive impact for everyone. I don’t think it’s going be a very big impact, but making even a small one feels good.
Which skills did you acquire during your studies that are particularly useful for your career?
There are standard answers that every engineer (probably) says, like problem solving skills, critical thinking and analytical thinking. This is generally how all engineers are educated and that’s fine and true. But I think there are some things that are particularly important and also really go along with HSRW.
The skills which are most important for my current job are really the fundamentals, especially what we learned in the first three semesters, the fundamentals in math and everything else. I didn’t like these topics in the beginning (which is probably true for the majority of engineering students), but these fundamentals were paramount for my bachelor’s, my master’s, for the thesis and my current job. Initially during my bachelor’s, I mistakenly thought that these fundamentals won’t pop up again. Since I’m quite research focused right now, the fundamentals we learned are not even enough sometimes! I had to learn a lot more by myself on the job and during the thesis. So, the fundamentals were particularly important.
I think what also differs at HSRW compared to other universities with engineering degrees was that we had a lot of management classes: project management, self-management, cross-cultural management, et cetera. I worked as a student assistant for Ms Viermann in cross-cultural management and I think this is a very useful skill, especially in international corporations. Within my team, at least half are Danes, but in the smaller group I usually work with, only a very small number of people are from Denmark. Most people are from all over the world. And having the skills I learned deeply ingrained through lots of practice is very important. English skills are important too, of course—without these I wouldn’t be here probably.
And the last skill I acquired is to concentrate on tasks for a very long period of time. I was really bad at this before I started studying at Rhine-Waal. I couldn’t concentrate for longer than 20 minutes on a topic and now I can for days. This is something that really developed during my bachelor’s.
What advice do you have for our current engineering students?
To start with, I would strongly recommend attending Freshers’ Week. I think it is important at the start of your studies to be open and meet new people that might seem completely different. This is what I tried to do on the first day: I just went up and talked to the person who seemed the most different to me (both behaviour and outward characteristics). He actually ended up becoming one of my closest friends and we really helped each other during our entire studies. It is absolutely important to connect and meet with people. It is not just about studying, it’s about having fun and going to parties, too. Usually, student life is the one time in life where you can easily fail, really find yourself and try new things. Later on, it will be way tougher to do such things.
The next thing, which is very unique about Rhine-Waal, is that it is still a quite young university and the professors have a lot of freedom. There are no old and rigid structures and they really help you if you just ask. Maybe not all, but the large majority. My advice would be to listen and to engage with the professors. They’re the ones writing the exams, so they also know how to pass the exam. I tried to follow what the professor told me for each course and this is how I passed all of the subjects on the first attempt.
Further, I think it’s consistency that gets you through an engineering degree. During my entire bachelor’s, I only missed two lectures or exercises. At the same time, I don’t see a lot of value in getting through the programme during the standard time frame, so it’s definitely not an issue if you take longer than seven semesters. But I think going to the lectures, going to the exercises and just doing what you are told to do in the beginning, really helped because I didn’t need to think of ways to solve problems all by myself: I was given hints how to solve them. And I also tried to understand everything as much as possible. Don’t just learn for the exam, spit it out, and not think about it anymore afterwards. Also, as you progress, you will find that lectures are dependent on each other, so skipping them can have wider consequences. Another tip that helped me a lot: I took as many notes as possible. In fact, it was nearly a complete copy of what all professors wrote. Afterwards I ran through my daily notes in the evening for around 10 minutes. That was really useful and efficient.
At one point it was important for me to figure out the direction I wanted to go, because you eventually need to decide on a focus area. It’s not that the focus area will define your entire professional life later, but it’s a first crossroads on your path and I can really recommend looking deeper into topics that you are really interested in for this decision. This is what I did in my free time. YouTube was definitely helpful, but also reading some very short summaries of books helped. I sometimes enjoyed just taking an advanced engineering book with topics I didn’t understand yet and just reading single chapters that sounded interesting. I recommend starting with this approach early if you have the time and energy.
I think it is very important also to not over or underestimate the degree. I don’t think you need to be the smartest person in the room to make it. As a German, it might be easier because I have an easier start compared to international students who have to deal with visa regulations and other burdens, but it’s still nothing to be afraid of. Of course, sometimes you’re nervous before exams or you’re a little bit afraid of this one professor or whatever. But overall, I think it’s important to sometimes take a step back and just see that so many people get through their studies and it's not about being the smartest: it's just about consistency. And of course, fun. Fun is essential.
My final two pieces of advice, particularly for the German students: don’t just hang around with the other German students. Interact with international students as much as possible, as this is a unique opportunity. And for the non-German students: I think everybody’s going to tell you the same thing, but it’s really essential now and for the future: learn German early on so that you can have an easier time finding jobs or internships.
What is your favourite memory of your student life at Rhine-Waal?
I don’t think there is a favourite memory, as there are far too many. It was the most transformative time of my life. What I really loved was going to football and futsal sessions. Going to Nijmegen with our dance group. Joining lectures was actually fun to me. Having lunch with friends. Studying with my study buddies. I met them nearly every evening and we just talked about things we needed to understand for the studies and then later we drifted off to topics like free time and talked about anything and everything else. Then going to all of the parties and events. We also had a lot of cooking sessions with people from different countries and we prepared different meals the others hadn’t eaten before. And I also brought my friends to my hometown to meet my family and show them where I grew up. That was also really nice.