After obtaining my Bachelor's degree in applied psychology, I decided to explore the biological mechanism underlying psychology in the future. This motivation guided me to this Master's program in Genes in Behavior and Health, which provides a very special combination of psychology and genetics.

This program is highly research-oriented, so it equipped me with essential research skills and improved my research ability. Two sets of words encapsulate the most important skills I have learned in this program: statistics and programming, presentation and communication. For the former set, quite some courses entail statistical knowledge and programming with R/Python. While for the latter part, most courses take presentation as one of the assessment methods. Despite the process of gaining those skills can be challenging, those skills themselves are essential in behavioral genetics research. Meanwhile, if someone has confidence in any of these two parts, the study life in this program would be much easier.

In addition, the small size of this program brings another advantage: more communication with fellow students and teachers. Thanks to this advantage, I could easily build connections with other students and received a lot of help from them, which was important for me as an international student from outside of Europe. Besides, I also felt supported and helped by the teachers in many ways, such as finding an external internship.

After graduation, I will look for a PhD position in the field of behavioral genetics, so that I can continue to study genetic mechanisms underlying human behavior and psychology.