"I want to be a mom, but I also want to have a career!"
Alexandra Espinosa Rojas is studying for a Master's degree in international management. In this interview, she talks about the opportunities offered by the double degree and how family and studies can be combined.
In our series “Your Path to a Master’s Degree,” we periodically feature our master’s students and share their reasons for choosing their specific degree programme, their life in the region, and their personal goals.
Alexandra Espinosa Rojas is pursuing a Master’s degree in international management. This collaborative Master’s degree programme, offered in partnership with the International University Institute Zittau at the Technical University of Dresden, is the only one of its kind in Saxony. She is taking advantage of the opportunity to earn a double degree with the Technical University of Liberec and is the mother of two children, both of whom were born while she was a student. A conversation about children, career, and culture.
Born in ’97, lively, loud, and funny—all while rocking a baby in her arms—Alexandra Espinosa Rojas talks about her master’s program in international management as she sits at the kitchen table in her room at Dorm F in Zittau. Living with her in one of the family rooms are her husband and her two sons, both born while she was a student. The older one is a year and a half old, and the younger one is just three weeks old. You might just catch a glimpse of a few faint dark circles under Alexandra Espinosa Rojas’s eyes, but then she lights up again as she talks about her second study location at the Technical University of Liberec, and that brief hint of fatigue vanishes. “I’m actually from Düsseldorf, ” says the 27-year-old. “That’s where I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Multimedia Management, which was relatively specialized. I spent a long time looking for a broader, more advanced program, ” she says, and that’s how she came across the Double Degree in international management offered by TU Dresden in collaboration with TU Liberec and IHI Zittau.
The opportunity to earn a master's degree from two universities in different countries seemed to me to be a unique and wonderful opportunity for further education.
”A double degree means that you take courses at both TU Dresden and one of its partner universities, and if you earn at least 30 credits here, you will receive a degree from both universities upon completion of your studies.
The International University Institute Zittau (IHI Zittau) was founded in 1993 as a model for joint, cross-border learning by partner universities in Saxony, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The IHI Zittau is first and foremost a network-based institution: With about 300 students, the student body is small but culturally diverse: over 30 nations from four continents are represented here. The advantages of a small graduate university: focused yet personalized support and the opportunity to study in small groups while building connections. Since 2013, IHI Zittau has been a Central Research Institution of TU Dresden. “I didn’t realize, however, that Zittau was actually farther from Dresden than I had thought—nor did I realize how small it is here.”
Alexandra Espinosa Rojas loves the cross-border Central European Campus Neisse/Nisa. Several times a week, she drives the twenty-minute trip to the Czech Republic. She’s taking introductory courses in Polish and Czech, believing it’s important to be able to communicate at least to some extent in the neighboring countries. Internationality plays a major role in her life: her husband is Colombian. They met in Düsseldorf while salsa dancing. And they moved to Zittau together. Their children are growing up bilingual, “we definitely want to live abroad at some point, ” she says quite clearly. Perhaps in Latin America. Right after completing her bachelor’s degree, Alexandra Espinosa Rojas worked at Amazon Logistics as an “area manager,” leading a team of 80 employees. English, Spanish—no problem for her. It’s no surprise, then, that she’s also connected to the neighboring countries at the Zittau campus; she says her circle of friends consists mainly of Polish and Czech students. During her studies, however, she meets people from a wide variety of nationalities: students from India, Nepal, and Latin America. “I love working with international teams to overcome challenges together, but also to resolve conflicts that arise due to cultural differences.”
She becomes pregnant twice during her master’s program. Now she’s about to write her Master's thesis—of course, continuing her studies on the fly while raising a child wasn’t exactly easy, but in the end, it often turned out to be simpler than she’d expected. When there was a Halloween party at the Dezibar once, Alexandra Espinosa Rojas was even able to quickly run down from her dorm room, dance, and then dash back to her firstborn to breastfeed in between— "super convenient, " she laughs. She also enjoys small-town life more now than she did before having children. “Everything is close by, and the distances are short. Everyone at the Examination Office supported me and understood that I was applying for a vacation semester or postponing things because of the kids—and they’re always so happy when I bring the baby along; that’s how close-knit and family-like it is here in Zittau.” Alexandra Espinosa Rojas has a sunny and strong disposition; she wants to build a career and have at least four children: “I’ve been able to combine all the goals I had with this degree program!”
Text: Sophie Herwig
First floor