Pros of choosing to follow our Pre-Master

Leandro is a Fast Track student in his final year at Hotelschool The Hague. He shares the route he took so far from vocational studies to the Pre-Master programme.

Before studying at Hotelschool The Hague, I did my vocational studies (MBO) in Hospitality Management and never really considered doing a Master. I thought the step from MBO to Bachelor was big enough. However, because of previous internships and successfully obtaining my propaedeutic degree during the one-month Fast-track Summer Course in 2019, I saved 1,5 years of studying, and suddenly the gap didn’t seem as big.

Throughout my studies at HTH, I developed my skills on both professional and educational levels. The latter brought me to another development opportunity: the recently launched Pre-Master programme. First, you have to choose a specialisation in your final year, a minor, consisting of 10-week blocks. Whereafter, depending on the track you select, you start writing your thesis or internship. Last year, HTH launched the Pre-Master programme, consisting of two blocks of 10-weeks. This programme replaces a minor and is suited to students who want to pursue a Master after their Bachelor.

What is a Pre-Master?

Simply put, it’s a basis for all you need to know when wanting to do a Master. You will learn everything about research, how to design it, criticise it, and so on. All of this is important for writing your own thesis at both Bachelor and Research University levels.

For an idea of the content of the programme, here are the courses I follow:

• Research Methods
• Marketing Management
• Leadership & Management
• Advanced-Data Analysis
• Strategy & Organisation
• Academic Research Project - my own research!

Why choose the Pre-Master programme?

If you want to pursue a Master after your Bachelor, this is the quickest way to get there. To elaborate on this, the educational system in the Netherlands works as follows: Suppose you have a Bachelor’s Degree obtained at a University of Applied Sciences. However, you want to study for a Master’s Degree at a Research University (in Dutch Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs - WO). In that case, you first have to follow a one-year Pre-Master course at the Research University to be eligible for further studies. Due to the recent launch of the Pre-Master programme at HTH, we can already do a pre-master programme during our bachelor programme.

Studying my bachelor fast-track and choosing the pre-master programme has saved me time and money (2,5 years of studying)! Therefore, I want to apply for the Master of Science in Finance & Investments at Erasmus University, a partner of HTH. You can also study at the University of Amsterdam or Nyenrode University; the choice is yours!