Oscar, E-PiCo Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree, Class of 2022

What’s your name and where do you come from?

My name is Oscar Leal and I am from Mexico

Before E-PiCo, what and where did you study?

I studied Mechatronics Engineering at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey. (Mexico)

What options were you considering after your Bachelor degree? Why did you choose E-PiCo?

I was considering looking for a job after my studies, but the labor market in my city was not as developed as it is today. I decided to study, as a result, on this master’s program with the idea of enhancing and learning different technical abilities such as embedded systems, advanced control systems, power electronics and electric motor control.

What was your Master Thesis topic?

It was about developing machine learning algorithms to estimate the SOC of 12 LTO cells. I did this thesis at the Christian-Albrechts Universitaet zu Kiel, in collaboration with the Kiel University of Applied Sciences. The thesis was elaborated in the latter’s lab by measuring the most relevant features from the cells and applying a specific policy from the Reinforcement Learning approach. 

What do you find the most challenging in E-PiCo?

Elaborating the master’s thesis, because I was not familiar with Machine Learning, nor the programming language.

How long did you look for a job?

Honestly, just three or four weeks but I was contacted one month before handing in my thesis. A company from my city had contacted me via OCCMUNDIAL and I got a job offer with them a few days later. However, I decided to apply to other R&D automotive companies that had began their operations in Mexico (specifically in Monterrey) at the same time I was pursuing my master’s degree in Europe.