Unlock the world at Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering You won’t find another technical degree as broad and full of possibilities as Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering’s degree in marine and technical engineering (‘maskinmesteruddannelsen’). Danish sailors, merchants and shippers have relied upon their marine and technical engineers (MTEs) to take control of the technical aspects of ships and see them safely to shore for generations. Recently, their breadth of knowledge, propensity for leadership and technical skillset have seen more and more MTEs stay on land, employed in a never-ending array of industries and positions in Denmark and beyond. By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Kristoffer Mølstrøm
Out at sea, marine and technical engineers need to maintain a cool, calm overview of everything going on within the ship. At the same time, they must possess technical knowledge specific enough to deal with any problem that arises. The welfare of everyone on board depends on them. On land, there are 32 | Issue 134 | March 2020
few industries that wouldn’t also benefit from having someone like that onboard their team, something that plenty of technical companies have already realised. Nowadays, in fact, 80 per cent of MTEs from Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering end up working on land.
One of the school’s recent graduates, Thomas Vonsild, a confirmed landlubber, believes he owes the success of his recent career shift to the degree. Like many of his fellow students, Vonsild already had a well-established technical career, having worked as a graphic printer at a local newspaper for many years. “I felt like I couldn’t really advance to where I wanted to be on the career path that I was going down. The world was changing and though I’d loved my job, I needed further training if I were to work in a technical management capacity,” he recalls. “I came into the degree intending to use it as a stepping-stone from one career to another; it was clear from the beginning that it would open up a world of different career options to me, and it did.”