Interview with Regina Höllriegl, Germany

I am from Augsburg, Germany and I have two Bachelor Degrees from the Catholic University of Eichstaett. One is in European Studies, the other one in Political Science and Sociology.

Why did you choose to apply for the MSc in Global Development?

I studied political science and European Studies in my Bachelors, already there I was very interested in a course about the “capability approach” and development cooperation. We had an obligatory internship and I got lucky to get accepted as an intern at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. After that I was a 100% sure that I wanted to work in the field of development cooperation. I applied for the master because I was intrigued with the focus on economy and the good reputation of the university as well as the program. Furthermore, I got really convinced by the very practical approach when it comes to teaching methods courses. This seemed very appealing considering that I am aiming at a job in (political) consultancy afterwards.

What is the best thing about studying at the MSc in Global Development?

Besides the many challenging, forwarding courses, what especially got me was the group structure. Even though before I would prefer a lot more working individually than in groups, I got very lucky with my groups. The master is very practical oriented, with Stata, GIS and other program tools, which is very challenging. Now to do it on my own it would have been a big piece of work but working in a group, learning was actually interactive and much quicker. Also I got various informed inputs which helped me taking a different perspective on cases and even facts, changing and challenging my way of thinking. This process was also due to the cross disciplinary aspect of Global Development, so in every team there would be persons with different “backgrounds” (one of the most asked questions during introduction week by the way: What is your background?). In addition to that I think group work as such, as you have to arrange yourself with other persons and opinions, is also a very good preparation for “real-life” jobs.