Coming home

First of all I wish all the readers of this blog a Happy New Year filled with exciting and inspiring experiences, laughter and happiness. As the year 2009 drew to a close we all entered our well-deserved 2 weeks of christmas vacation. For me this meant, coming home to spent the christmas days with my family and friends in the Northern part of Bavaria where I grew up. Then, one week of feasting, sleeping and celebrating later, a second homecoming event: to my old university hometown Göttingen in Southern Lower Saxony where I spent New Years Eve with lots of old friends. Another 2 days later I boarded the train back to Utrecht. And once again it felt a little like coming home which surprised me given that only 4 months have passed since I moved to Utrecht.

Well one might say that I´ve been kind of spoilt: coming home 3 times within 2 weeks isn´t too bad. But at the same time it´s kind of weird not being able to refer to one place as your "home". Yet, having your friends and family spread around the world and living the life of a nomad are not exactly conducive to assigning the notion "my home" to one specific place. Nevertheless, I gotta say that I sincerely enjoyed every each of my homecomings and not for love or money would I want to miss the invaluable experiences and friendships that keep me connected to these 3 places. Let´s see what´s going to be next on the list.

So far Utrecht presented itself in the best light and I can´t complain about anything but the rental prizes. The elapsed 4 months of studying have allowed me to immerse myself in academic aspects completely new to me. Though sometimes struggling with the social science topics I´m very happy with the choice and quality of my programme. It´s a nice mixture of contact hours and self-study which leaves enough time to pursue my own interests and to engage in extracurricular activities. Furthermore, we´ve had several guest lecturers from all around the world who enriched the classes with new insights and perspectives.

There´s one thing, however, that could improve the quality of the programme even more in my eyes: though theoretically possible, it is practically not feasible to attend courses at different universities due to unsynchronized timetables. Considering the urban agglomeration in the Netherlands, Utrecht´s central location, and hence the proximity of brilliant universities, I think synchronized timetables would significantly increase the range of courses to choose from and thereby improve the study situation considerably. But, of course I am aware that this does not constitute an easy task.

Something which is in turn very conducive to the academic diversity of Utrecht University is the fact that it offers a variety of possibilities to do a semester abroad. Some of my fellow students are going to take advantage of these vast relationships UU is maintaining with universities and other institutions from all around the world. Some will stay in Europe, others will try their luck in Australia, the US, Asia, Africa or South America.

Despite my passion for travelling, I resisted the temptation to apply for a semester abroad myself appreciating the academic quality and beauty of Utrecht. But let´s see where my Master thesis wants to be written...