What is your academic background?
- Bachelor in Human Geography at UNIL (2008-2011)
- Master in Urban Studies at UNIL (2011-2013)
- Additional training: CAS in real estate economic expertise at EPFL organized by Professor Thalmann (2016-2017)
What has been your career path so far, and what are your plans for the future? Why did you choose this path?
- After the Master’s degree: civil service within at the spatial planning department of the canton of Vaud, ideal experience to tackle concrete subjects and facilitate the job search after studies.
- Since 2014: consultant at “Wüest Partner”, a real estate and territorial development consultancy office active throughout Switzerland, which has comprehensive databases on real estate an land use in Switzerland.
- Then continuing education in real estate in order to extend the range of my consulting activities within the company.
What challenges did you face during your master’s degree at Unil, and what are are its qualities and flaws in your opinion?
- The challenge was to find an interesting and innovative master thesis topic with my professor. This was made possible by the data Swisscom provided us with. It enabled me to work on the delimitations of urban areas using telephone flows. This work was also a very good business card when I was looking for a job.
- The courses of the Master can sometimes seem a little disconnected from the problems encountered in the industry, but the curriculum is very stimulating with electives courses from other faculties (HEC, EPFL), which offers the opportunity to build a customized curriculum.
In what way does your master training at the Unil, and more specifically the “spatial analysis” orientation, have been useful during your experience in the professional world?
- The advantage of a training in geography is its multidisciplinarity. Some will see this as a weakness because the freshly graduated geographer is not intended for a specific job, but the advantage is that this training also leaves many doors wide open.
- The training in spatial analysis primarily allows to specialize in data processing, statistics and representation of geographic data, skills that are of interest to employers and are now highly sought after in a more and more digitized world.