Being a student again...

So, yesterday was my first day back at a university nearly 11 years after my graduation. It was definitely weird sitting in a room where basically everyone except for the speaker was just a bit over half my age or at least appeared that way. I somehow simply felt totally out of place there but I hope this will only be temporarily.

As part of my curriculum I’m attending a course called “Technik - Ethik - Politik” (“Technology - Ethics - Politics”) which puts a spotlight on the social effects of technology. As the title already indicates, that course is held in German. For some reason I hadn’t realized that. Thanks to conferences and also my work so far, I’ve grown used to everything either being done in English or at least that a quick switch to English takes place if one of the attendees is struggling with the language. That’s obviously not the case at a university. If the course is marked as German, it is held in German. Now I’ll also have to write some short articles in German … and read German literature. This will be even more strange πŸ˜…

As for finding my way around: All of Inffeldgasse 25 looks from the outside like one large construction site due to all entrance pathways being renovated/repaired at the same time. Combined with me basically only being there for the second time in my life, it took me quite a while to find the right room πŸ˜… Now I just have to continue exploring a bit to find the best spots with working power outlets and where the coffee/cocoa machines are 😁