"I am a graduate from the bioscience engineering track from the Master in Bioinformatics at Ghent university and the Bachelor in Bioscience Engineering at UAntwerp. I would recommend this master track to any (aspiring) bioscience engineer who either has an interest in informatics and/or statistics. Personally, I adore programming, but the statistics seemed like a necessary evil in the beginning. However I quickly realized that the focus of this curriculum is on understanding these concepts, not learning them by hearth. This definitely suited my learning style. After understanding, actually applying the theory in realistic examples using actual experimental datasets becomes a focal point in the practical sessions and assignments. The topics of these assignments can be chosen to suit your interests so that you can become a specialist in one of the many areas of bio-informatics and gain a useful and applicable skillset. Whether you like plant biology, cancer genomics, proteomics or phylogenetics, bio-informatics is at its hearth a multidisciplinary field. As a bioscience engineer, the engineering courses were still present, together with the bioinformatics courses. These courses were tutored by a varied group of friendly professors at many different campuses. This results in a multitude of varying interesting thesis/assignment topics and many opportunities to work or start a PhD in different scientific disciplines. Even though bio informatics isn’t very popular within bioscience engineering yet, it’s quickly becoming increasingly relevant. Therefore, I’m very happy that I took a chance and chose this master education."

"After my bachelor in Computer Science engineering I decided to start the master in Bioinformatics (Engineering track), which I finished in 2021. During the bachelor I already gained some knowledge and skills for the ‘informatics’ side, but my last biology course dated from high school. Do not let this scare you, as you will get an excellent course during the first semester to recap and expand your knowledge in this field. Besides, you learn to apply statistical and computer science techniques to specific problems in biology. It also allows you to interpret the obtained results and gain insights in the biology behind them. Almost every course contains a project, which gives you lots of hands-on experience. Although these require quite some effort, it is also the quickest way to learn and apply the theoretical concepts. During these projects you get the chance to work together with students and professors from different backgrounds, which often gives new perspectives. This interdisciplinary approach allows to quickly expand your knowledge and discuss about problems with different types of people. There is a wide variety of options for the topics of the projects and the master dissertation. This gives you the chance to try out a lot of different fields in bioinformatics to find which one interests you the most, or become an expert in one field. If you want learn more about bioinformatics, and work with interesting data and state of the art techniques, I would highly recommend this master."

"I graduated as a Master in Bioinformatics (System Biology Track) in 2021, before this master I obtained my bachelor degree of Pharmaceutical Engineering in China (ECUST). Before joining this program, I didn’t have background in programming and that time AI/machine learning was really a hot topic either in Industrial or Academia, I wanted to shape my path on it. Then I was attracted to this program that provides intensive programming courses as well as statistics courses. Different from classmates that from Biology/ Bioengineer/ Computer science background, I have a different bachelor degree, I am really happy to find my unique track in Ghent I did my master thesis ‘Drug-target interaction prediction’, this thesis topics drives me to an intern in a technology company named Alibaba DAMO Academy from China, then I touched the Genomics Service Products in Alibaba Cloud and made contributions to the code for this product. So now I am a SDE in cloud computing company thanks to this master degree and training. I would say this program gives a lot of directions for people who are new to Bioinformatics, you can find the direction that fits your background well or what you are interested in. And during the program, the pandemic of COVID happened, it was really nice to help to follow the Epidemiology and Clinical Trails course as an elective courses, I learned how the vaccine was developed.. From the evolutionary biology course, I learned how viruses evolved. The professors provided the cutting-edge papers for us. I am happy that this program opens a door for me to broaden my view."

"I graduated as Master in Bioinformatics option Systems Biology in 2019. Before this master I obtained a Bachelor in Biochemistry and Biotechnology (UAntwerp). During that training I was introduced to bioinformatics for the first time and immediately saw its relevance. When I discovered that Ghent University offers a master's degree in bioinformatics I didn't hesitate to register. Still, I was nervous because I had no programming experience and due to circumstances I hadn't taken a math course during my bachelor's degree. However those nerves turned out to be unfounded. There are two subjects in the curriculum for programming, the first of which requires no prior knowledge. And math for math is never the goal. It is always about gaining insight into biological problems. I recommend this master to anyone with an interest in bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is important in modern research and this master gives you a broad theoretical and practical training in it. For many courses realistic projects are used. This ensures that you gain concrete experience. Moreover, for some of these projects, you sit together with students from the other educations. That broadens your view and you can learn from each other. Finally you will be taught by professors from different faculties which again broadens your view. After all bioinformatics is multidisciplinary. I am still happy that I followed this master."