This blog post describes my life as a student and compares this to the life outside campus after finishing my graduation.

First things first

Once I finished my High-School, being the best student of class at the age of 17, I was unsure about what life would be holding for me. Since my dream of becoming a pilot was not possible (since I am a Diabetic), I knew I was up to study in a university. As I was living in Brazil, you have to pass an entracne exam called “vestibular” which can be described as an randomized test for each university you apply for with a score board. The latter tells you, which degrees fit you regardiin gyour test’s results.

In order to prepare for it, I opted to attend a preparatorive course aka “Coursinho” which prepares you for the test. Since this is known for its own fees, I had to work (as I have already been doing as a language teacher) and increasing my workload in order to pay my bills. After a couple of vestibulares, from which I passed some, and some personal issues, I decided to get back to Germany and attend university there. Even though I am native, the German university system is different such that it requires you to have a German (or accepted) high school degree which is then used to decide which courses you are allowed to take, based on the final grade. As the Brazilian degree was not accepted, I had to retake this in Studienkolleg, after which I was finally able to study in the fields of “Economics” in fall 2014.

University

As you may have noticed, I might not be a “regular” student: I had to always work apart from my education and thus was not able to enjoy (all of the) freedom the cliché student has. Nonetheless, student’s life was great:

• Apart from my working time, I was able to decide wheter or not I wanted to go to university or not
• We had the liberty of deciding which courses to take or not
• I have gotten the possibility to augment my understanding of many political and/or economical decisions
• I got to know a lot of cool people, including my girlfriend (and waifu to be)

During this time, we were not only meant to study for exams we had to wirte term papers as well, which was not alwys easy-going, yet it tought every single on eof us how to work independently and in groups, whilst programing in different languages (LATEX, R) and presenting our results not only for colleagues, buut also for consulting companies as KPMG.

Whilst others could enjoy their free time, I was engaged to my job as the deputy movie director of the twn I was living in. This means that my days were not only long (working until midnight was considered leaving early) but also that my weekends were packed with nore work. Even though law sees students in working only 20h/week, it was tough for me to maintain this working time. One could not say, when the work day was over, since any customer had to be served and eventually presented a movie. Additionally I started working as a working student when only my thesis was due, which increased my workload even more.

Work-life

Once I had been awarded with the “Master of Science”, the firm I was employed to as a working student offered me a job (which I accepted) and from now on I was a ful member of the group of fully commited employees:

• I had to arrive at least at 9am and have an open-end day
• The theroetical knowledge I aquired in university was useless ~80% of the times
• I had to relearn how to use Excel, since I was used to other programs (Mainly R)

An actually surprising fact: most of my university knowledge I aquired in my courses was more or less useless. Business accounting sheets were not made as I was taught, certain key figures were not that important at all. But one thing university made me develop was being able to multi-task, think logically and how to approach to problems. Working in teams, communication and presentation skills.

Now you might ask. if I needed university for all of these things. The answer is no. I would have learned this sooner or later anywys. But what makes univeristy and student life so valuable then?

The answer is short and simple: The people you get to know.