Alumnus Maarten Grootendorst: “Psychologists can also be great data scientists”

Maarten Grootendorst is an alumnus of the Master’s in Data Science in Business and Entrepreneurship at JADS. After completing two masters in psychology, he decided to pursue a more technical master. After his master he combined his knowledge of psychology and data science to prove that psychologists can also be great data scientists. In this interview, Maarten talks about his experiences with the Master’s at JADS and what he is currently doing.

Why did you choose JADS?

“I did two masters in Psychology, and they were very fun and interesting, but I still missed the technical aspect. I thought it would be cool to see how I could combine those two fields. JADS was a place where that was possible. In addition, JADS was a new university at the time and the combination of Data Science and Entrepreneurship really appealed to me. That is why I was eager to discover how I could apply my entrepreneurial and psychological side in this field and that is why I chose JADS.”

What did you remember most about the Master’s program?

“What stayed with me the most are the presentations we had to give during each course. I found them very special, because in working life you constantly have to give presentations to sell your product, technology or methodology, for example. You can be technically strong, but if you don’t know how to sell it, nothing will happen. This focus on selling products and convincing people of the importance of your work was something we did nonstop during the Master’s. As a psychologist, I loved going beyond just ‘technology’.”

“In addition, the community was very special. We were a very small group of about 10 students and everyone was terribly competitive. That was fantastic because basically everything we did, someone had to be the best at that. As a result, we spent an enormous number of hours outside of college learning about this field and about ourselves.”

What is the most important thing you learned during the master’s at JADS?

“It’s not so much about the technology, because the technology constantly changes. It goes far beyond the technology itself. I learned how to ensure that the things I invent find a place in the context where you’re implementing it. That could be an organization or a particular use case. For me, it becomes interesting when your technology is deployed in large organizations and you see the impact of it. In fact, I have often seen in practice that the simplest solutions have the greatest impact. I found that impact very special. In addition, the combination of technology and communication skills was necessary for me to be successful in this industry. JADS gave me a good foundation in that.”

What did you do after your Master’s and what are you doing now?

“After the Master’s, and also during the Master’s, I mainly focused on proving that psychologists can also be great data scientists. This is because I noticed that if you apply as a psychologist for a technical job, people often think you are not technical enough. So I started writing a lot of articles on technical topics, such as large language models, to show the world that I not only understand what I am talking about, but that I can also communicate and explain it well. In doing so, I create beautiful visualizations so that people can follow the often complicated technical models more easily and intuitively. I also have created my own open source software that anyone can download freely. My articles and software have been read and downloaded millions of times. I am very happy with this and still get a lot of nice and cool reactions back.”

“Currently I am mainly involved in creating content, writing code and open source material around large language models. In addition, I am writing a book: Hands-On Large Language Models. It’s about how to use large language models in practice and common techniques.”