Well, first of all, let me have a brief introduction about myself. My name is Kianoosh (usually called Kia or Kian by my national/international friends). I’m 24 years old and I have recently graduated from MSC of petroleum engineering at DTU (so I guess I can officially call my self an engineer).
As a brief overview of myself, I finished my BSC of petroleum engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) in 2017. To be honest, I didn’t appear as a very hard-working student at the beginning of my BSc studies (I was among backbenchers who care about everything but studies ). My grades were quite good in the first semester, which gave me a finger cross to continue with my goalless and lazy academic lifestyle. A good part of this period of my life was creating a lot of free time for focusing on other things, which were mostly hanging with friends and participating in extracurricular activities such as being a member of various organizations including SPE (society of petroleum engineers). During those days I got the magnificent experience of working with international students coming from different cultures, backgrounds and many amazing diversities that triggered my curiosity to learn more and more about them.
Hanging out with people who look, speak and think different was a unique chance to look at the world with a different eye and simply giving me a wider insight about my future (yeap you are right, it was the flash of insight for changing from a lazy guy to a go-getter person in academic field). I started paying attention to courses, going to the library and even sharing my notes with other students during the exam period. I was like a hungry shark that every spear and hardships of studying were making him more and more aggressive. Time was passing in a blink of eye and graduation was approaching, so I started thinking about my life after graduation.
Because of my good academic performance, I was offered to continue my MSC in petroleum engineering, which was a tempting offer for a person with a lazy background like me. Besides, because of the good ranking of my university and the good potential of Iran (that’s where I am from) in the petroleum field, my working could have been somehow guaranteed, but nooo, it wasn’t the journey I was looking after. It reminds me of Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings, who left his cosy home for a complex journey that nobody knew its end.
So, I started looking for opportunities in continuing my studies in an international environment. Because of my background and personal interests in the petroleum engineering field, I decided to continue petroleum engineering for my future studies. So, I started going through different websites, checking the rankings, asking my BSC professors, searching LinkedIn and many other routes to find the best places for filling out my list. After thinking days and nights and considering different factors such as academic status, collaboration level between university and industry and the condition of the country, Scandinavian countries appeared more interesting for me. Choosing between Norway and Denmark was a real dilemma and after discussing with my supervisor who had the experience of working in Europe and my intimate friend that was studying at DTU (MSC of petroleum engineering), I finally made my mind to choose Denmark for the rest of my journey.
After two years of studying at DTU, I’m totally grateful for the choice I made two years ago. The great academic status, close relation between professors and students ( I can’t still believe that I call my professor by his first name), proper relationship between university and industry that allows students to taste the atmosphere of the industrial world in parallel with their studies, are the most striking features of DTU that made my MSC studies an unforgettable lifetime journey. During my studies, I had the chance to work with two different companies including Hess corporation and Apriside, which gave me a perfect opportunity to learn more about my beloved field of study. The flexible academic schedule of DTU enables the students to easily plan about their future and free their time for going beyond academic borders. The other thing that I really liked about DTU was its international environment that provides you with the opportunity to study, work and of course party with your friends from other countries. I think petroleum engineering MSC in DTU is one of the most international fields in DTU; in which, we were 90% international.
As mentioned previously, I recently graduate from DTU and defended my thesis entitled as “Geothermal energy production and storage potential in Frederikshavn formation”, which was done under the supervision of professor Wei Yan and in collaboration with Ross offshore company. Unfortunately (or luckily ) I didn’t have so much time to celebrate my graduation as I started my fulltime work as the so-called “Foundation Engineer” at Hess corporation and another chapter of my journey is initiated.
To put it in a nutshell, if you are looking for a perfect international academic environment with close collaboration with industry (super useful for your graduate life), living and partying with international students, DTU is definitely a perfect place that you can find them all. There is an old Persian quote that says : if someone has done something, you must be able to do that as well, if someone has been doing something, you must finish it first and if someone is dreaming about something, you must make that dream come true, so fight for your dreams and never be scared of stepping into new journeys. I have attached some of my memories , hope you find them interesting.