My Story and Introduction

My name is Marrit Starkenburg, I am from the Netherlands and 28 years of age. I received my bachelor's degree in Coastal Zone and Marine Management with a major in Marine Biology in January 2019. Afterwards, I went into the job searching game and noticed I was still missing some competencies. Therefore, I decided to apply for IMBRSea, as I knew that this program would challenge me and help me further develop myself in this beautiful field of marine science.

Right now, I am in the final stages of finishing my first year of the master's. Due to the pandemic, it turned out completely different than I would have foreseen. I started the year in Oviedo, Spain and I will finish it from my parent's home in the Netherlands. This year has been a wild rollercoaster ride, with a lot of uncertainties. From not knowing when we would to starting our first face-to-face classes and ending behind the laptop for the last month of the term. While most of the IMBRSea students had started their second semester, ours would only start on the 22nd of February 2021, from home. I was lucky to be able to fly to Faro by the end of March when corona cases seemed to get lower. Unfortunately, we finished the semester from behind the screen. In the meantime, I was planning my trip to Rostock. One week before I would be starting I heard from my supervisor that we would have to work mostly from home. As corona cases in the province suddenly started to rise and a lockdown was needed as vaccination rates were still too low.

This professional practice was challenging even more so because we were working from home and it took a mental toll on me during these 9 weeks. But overall I was able to finish it with success and was able to finish a set of assignments and miscellaneous tasks.