Hello everybody, and welcome to my blog!
Let me introduce myself: My name is Christoph, I am a 30 year old German who graduated in Pharmacy at the University of Heidelberg and recently received his PhD from the University of Vienna. In less than two weeks from now I will leave the beautiful city of Vienna and start a Postdoc at University College London. Thanks to the folks at Nature Networks I have been giving the opportunity to blog about this and would like to invite you to take part in my little journey.
Will I be able to finish all remaining work on time? Will I get one of the fellowships I applied for? How is life in London? Will I ever be able to blog as eloquently as my native-speaking colleagues and do readers really care about this? Soon we will know more.
In this blog I would like to portray my personal experiences associated with moving to another country. As a foreigner, I am hoping to look at things from a different perspective when comparing (lab) life in London with that in other countries. Considering myself truly European, I’d also like to keep an eye on how Europe is growing together and how this may affect us scientists.
I hope you enjoy it!
Welcome on board, Christoph! I hope you find that having an outlet for your expatriate experiences is a relief. Like you, I started with a lighter expat experience (a year in England from the U.S.) before moving on to somewhere slightly more foreign (France). It will be interesting following your evolution in real time.
Welcome Christoph, to NN and to London. I think there is going to be another Nature Network informal meeting in London in a few weeks’ time, so you can meet more NN people then.
London can be a damnable place (on the underground in the busy times), but it can also be wonderful (in the parks on a sunny day).
Looking forward to hearing more.