Year 1
To improve the processes, you first have to know them well. That is why in the first year you learn, for example, how to make cheese, brew beer, purify water and develop chemical products. You can immediately put everything you learn in these chemistry classes into practice. In the process, you develop some initial ideas: how can it be done smarter, faster or cleaner? Then you are ready for the next step: how do you design safe and sustainable production processes? To learn this, you will work with existing companies and organizations that want to upgrade their systems. Together with your project group, you work on simulation software for risk management and you look at promising and sustainable innovations. In the first year, you will also work on your communication skills and receive academic career coaching.
Year 2
In year 2, you take a minor and you do an internship. It’s up to you what you do first. The minor enables you to deepen your knowledge in a certain field or broaden your skills. You will also be able to customize your degree programme and distinguish yourself on the labour market. Do you want to improve your technical skills? Or do you want to learn more about entrepreneurship? It is all possible! Maybe international development cooperation is a logical next step for you. You decide how to increase your future value and impact. Do you prefer more in-depth knowledge? In that case PFT offers an interesting minor inMicrotechnology, Processing & Devices. . But you can also complete a minor at another university of applied sciences.
The internship will be in the other semester of year 2. You can choose a longer 20-week internship or two shorter 10-week internships. The degree programme has many partners in large and small companies and we cooperate with universities all over the world. Maybe you will perform a safety analysis for a start-up that is launching a new brand of baby food, or you do an internship at a large chemical company that wants to make its operations more sustainable. Students also do internships at engineering firms and pharmaceutical companies, and they conduct research, for example, at TNO (Dutch Organizations for Applied Scientific Research) or at a foreign university. This is the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in a new (corporate) culture.
Year 3
In the final year of the degree programme, you specialize: you will focus strictly on the chemical or on the food side. In the first semester, you deepen your knowledge of your chosen field with working groups, lectures and projects. Are you focusing on processes in the food industry? Then you could be working on functional foods such as cholesterol-lowering margarine, for example. If you choose to specialize in chemical process technology, you could be working with catalysis to generate as few emissions as possible. And then the moment has come: in the final semester of the 3-year Process & Food Technology degree programme, you graduate by completing an assignment project at a company. You apply everything you have learned in the previous years to your graduation thesis, your presentation and thesis defense.
Show less 
