“Ever since I had memory, I always wanted to be an Egyptologist. I understood very soon that a solid and dedicated education was necessary to realize my goal. The programme at Leiden University was perfect for my educational needs: thanks to a team of renowned and esteemed Egyptologists, it covers all phases of Egyptian history, spanning from the Predynastic to the Coptic Period; other very specific courses, like Egyptian Epigraphy, taught me essential skills to be applied on the field and helped me to discover my niche in the vast panorama of the Egyptological world.“

“After my Master, I am still pursuing the Egyptological career with a PhD. at the University of Strasbourg (France). Furthermore, I collaborate as a field archaeologist with several archaeological projects all over Egypt. I have always been interested in the perception that ancient people had of the surrounding architecture, and I am now researching the way buildings influenced each other in the organization of space. I started my research with full awareness of the difficulties and challenges that a doctoral path presents and I am convinced that without the solid education I received in Leiden I would not have been able to be academically mature.”

Academic and communicative skills

“Studying Egyptology in Leiden has not only offered me the skills to be a good researcher. It also offered me the opportunity to learn how to communicate and share my research with the academic community. Leiden is a crossroad, where scholars always stop by. They are always invited to share and present their ongoing research, and this made me quickly realize that communication is an essential aspect: a research cannot be completely understood and appreciated if the researcher is not able to present it in an engaging and professional way.”

"As a child, I was fascinated by antiquity. I was obsessed with Greek mythology and wanted to become an Egyptologist even then. So when I came across the Bachelor’s programme in Ancient Cultures of the Mediterranean World at Leiden University, my father immediately said: ‘This is really perfect for you!’ During my Bachelor’s programme, I had chosen the specialisation in Egyptology, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Assyriology, so I decided to make that my minor. This ultimately culminated in a Research Master’s in Egyptology, and a Master’s degree in Assyriology. What I enjoyed most was combining the two disciplines; that was really my niche. Plus, the atmosphere of the study programme is fantastic: it is small-scale, so you get to know your fellow students and lecturers really well."

I currently work as a sustainability project leader at a municipality where I am mainly involved in the heat transition. As a project leader, you have to do a lot of research: Is this feasible? How do I take this project one step further? And what effect will this project have? Thanks to the critical and interdisciplinary perspective I learned in my study programme, I can also look beyond the borders of this project, and try to discover and use as many leads as possible.