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Who are we?

The Garage is a physical place and an educational concept in one. Think of it as an office or a hub where students work in different groups on projects with and for the professional field and/or the research groups. A minor is offered, with two tracks, but there are also students who do their internship at The Garage, graduate or obtain their HZ Personality points. The Garage is also involved in HZ project weeks and likes to think along with courses or colleagues on topics such as design thinking and interdisciplinary learning.

Why do we call it The Garage? We see the range of projects as metaphorical cars that need repairs. The Garage is always open, and ‘mechanics’ (students) constantly work as cars come and go. The cars, as a metaphor for the projects, are in need of a certain fix. The repair takes a certain amount of time, approach, and tools.

Students come and go; some complete their full minor of 30 EC, a half minor of 15 EC, their internship, graduation thesis, or elective credits like HZ Personality. This means some students are full-time and others part-time. Altogether, this creates the dynamic and eclectic mix we treasure.

Two Tracks

When deciding to follow the minor of the Garage, you can choose between the Applied Research Track, or the Design Thinking Track. But how do they differ?

The Applied Research track focusses on research assignments that require deep exploration of a specific subject, including conducting research and collecting data. Projects are provided by internal HZ research groups. Students work individually, in pairs or in groups of 3 on a project. Ideally, students spend one day a week with the internal research group and the remaining days at the Garage office, working from home, or other workspaces.

Students choosing the Design Thinking track will work on projects addressing specific problems that need innovative and practical solutions. This can be products, services, experiences or processes. The projects are provided by external commissioners, such as regional organizations, businesses, entrepreneurs or municipalities. Students work in teams of three to five. In addition, students work on two projects simultaneously and use our Design Thinking toolkit as the project group’s major companion throughout the weeks.

Coaching is being offered for students of both tracks. All HZ Studio students can make use of the facilities in the Garage, such as being part of social activities, the wellbeing program and the open-plan office, located in the HZ Tower in Vlissingen. 

Interdisciplinary learning

Most project teams are composed of students with mixed backgrounds, study programs, study years, and nationalities, especially when following the Design Thinking track. This so called interdisciplinary setup allows students to learn from one another. Work with people from different studies, cultures, and nationalities to develop cross-cultural skills. Although many projects and most talks in the studio are conducted in English, it is also possible that projects are carried out in Dutch by Dutch-speaking students only. However, to stimulate internationalization at home, hosting numerous HZ and external students from various nationalities and cultural backgrounds, we prefer English as our used language.

Feel free to take a look at our projects page in which all projects that students worked on, are shortly explained by means of a project description and the most important outcomes.

What's in it for students

Working in our studio allows students to complete:

• full minor 30 ECT's
• half minor 15 ECT's
• small minor entities (repairs) of 6 ECT's or 10,5 ECT's 
• HZ Personality points
• graduation assignment
• traineeships
• internships

The HZ Studio provides coaching and a vibrant workspace in the tower of the HZ on the second floor. Coaches and fellow students are there to assist and motivate. In our studio, we work together. Although the pandemic has made it so that students more often desire to work online from time to time, we do try to regularly meet at our hub since we believe this can be beneficial for group dynamics. Project teams can work in separate spaces, and we also have sufficient opportunities to brainstorm, discuss, drink coffee, or have lunch.

Let our students Nele and Marlene introduce you to The Garage in the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPWL8M-anag