“After getting my bachelor’s in Food Science and Nutrition in the UK, I went to work for a couple of years because I didn’t want to do a master’s programme straight after my bachelor’s degree. Initially I wanted to become a dietician, but I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to do a master’s programme in that field. So I worked and travelled a lot first.

Being born in Malaysia, which I would call a semi-developed country, and living in developed countries like the UK and Japan, I became interested in differences between countries. I started questioning things like why people in some countries have better access to basic things like education or health than people in other countries. This put me on the track of globalisation and global issues. Since I was still interested in nutrition as well, I started looking for programmes that had a health as well as a global component. The master’s programme in Global Health at Maastricht University stood out from the beginning since it collaborates with universities in Canada, Thailand, India and Colombia. That’s a very interesting approach to global health, and interacting with students from around the globe with the same interest boosts thinking and raises the overall standard in the classroom. Another appealing element is the exchange semester abroad at one of the collaborating universities. The symposium in May in India where all the students of the collaborating universities in this master’s programme meet is surely the highlight of the academic year.

Having travelled a lot and having worked in various jobs, for example as an English teacher at an elementary school in Japan and as a project coordinator at the School of Science at the University of Tokyo, I think I’ve developed myself enough and this master’s programme Global Health is the final addition to my knowledge and skills set. Because of this experience, combined with the languages I speak, English, Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese, I would love to move back to Southeast Asia after my master’s degree. My aim is to work for the WHO or another health organisation and give something back to society, to make a difference not as a policy-maker in an office, but by working directly with people in education and on various projects. Finding the reasons for certain problems and solving them on a higher level. With everything I learn this year, I feel I will be well qualified for that task.”

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