As I’m almost graduated for my master degree it is time to leave my student life and start my career. Yesterday, at the National Career Market, I gave this a start. All kinds of companies had a stand in the RAI in Amsterdam and during the day workshop were given. I followed a workshop about the future of engineers, one about argumentation during job interviews and one about personal branding. This last one was about who you are and how a company is in terms of its culture, and how to match you as a person with the right company. I thought it would be interesting but it was rather disappointing. This feeling was shared by a lot of persons as many people left the room during the workshop. The first two workshops were interesting and quite useful. The speaker in the argumentation workshop had a very good way to keep the crowds attention. This was necessary as people were sitting everywhere to attend it (couple of hundred people). Everyone had a green and red paper and had to stand. By asking questions with a green and a red answer we showed what we thought was the right answer. The ones that were wrong had to sit down until one person won. After the first question about half the crowd was still standing and after two question some 50 were left. And I? I survived the first question.
Besides the workshops I visited a couple of stands from companies working in my area of interest. But as it was really crowded everywhere I had to wait every time before someone was available to talk to. And every time I started talking to someone and discovered immediately that he or she didn’t know about my area, so I had to wait again until the right person had time. A bit annoying but in the end I got quite some information and a good feeling about the work that is done. It was a good way to informally meet companies and to learn what kind of questions I have to ask and the things I have to know before I can do job interviews.
I was pretty luckily on my way back to Wageningen. From the RAI I took the tram to Amsterdam Amstel and there I saw that an interruption between Utrecht and Arnhem was just over and the trains were starting to go again. The only consequence of this was that the trains were chock full but somehow I found a place to sit. Everyone stopped at the balconies but I entered the seating areas to find a place to stand but luckily there was just one seat left. My sore feet were very pleased with that 
At Utrecht the train almost emptied but became full again with people waiting over there. Without problems but pretty tired I arrived back in Wageningen.
So now the time has come to have a detailed look at the websites of the companies and apply to them in order to find a good and nice job.