A victory for Jens
Mechatronics engineer from the Mads Clausen Institute Jens Christensen received the BHJ Foundation’s award for best bachelor project.
On Friday June 26, the University of Southern Denmark celebrated the new master and bachelor graduates with a big graduation ceremony. According to tradition, the BHJ Foundation handed out two awards for best theses in cooperation with a company – mechatronics engineer Jens Christensen took the award for best bachelor project. A victory for the former admission course participant and smith, who decided to study to become an engineer when he was dismissed from his former job due to the financial crisis.
On admission course as a 45-year old
Jens was trained as a smith and worked at Pehama when the crisis hit the company and Jens had to leave his job. An old dream of becoming an engineer made Jens – as a 45-year old – to apply to the Admission Course, which makes it possible for skilled workers without a high school education to acquire the necessary levels in courses that give access to the engineering study programs. After a tough year with Danish, English, Math and Physics, Jens was able to proceed with the engineering study program Mechatronics.
Internship – final project – job.
Jens completed the engineering studies with very good results and he succeeded as one of the few to do his internship, write his final project and finally get a permanent employment at Linak. Jens’ task as a student at Linak was to reduce the production costs of a chair with an actuator. Not only did Jens solve the task, he even developed a prototype for a completely new chair. The prototype will now be tested in a socalled proof-of-concept project, which will show if the chair can be put into production. It is highly unusual for a student to reach this level that early in his career.
Praise and DKK 25.000.
At SDU’s graduation ceremony, Jens received proof that he has completed his final project extraordinarily well. The BHJ Foundation’s award for best final project in cooperation with a company is for DKK 25.000. The day after, Jens was able to celebrate his fiftieth birthday.
Photo: Jens Christensen between his supervisors from Linak, Kurt Lorentzen (left) and Svend Erik Outzen.