Finished studying... For now

I graduated at the FH Aachen a month ago.

After having my colloquium I had a month available for vacation before I will start to work full-time at the university.

The master thesis went through without any problems. Therefore, I am optimistic that a PhD program (or doctorate as it is called in Germany) is the right next step for me.

The problem with a PhD program for me is that currently only universities are allowed to offer such programs. As I studied at a “Fachhochschule” (University of Applied Sciences) this is not directly possible, because they don’t have the “Promotionsrecht”, which would allow professors to become doctoral advisers. A solution can be to find someone from a university who adopts this role. But there also is an attempt to extend the “Promotionsrecht” for all Universities through a so-called “Promotionskolleg NRW”. This will still take at least a year, which is why I am attempting to do the PhD in cooperation with a corresponding University.

Fortunately, my doctoral supervisor at the FH Aachen managed to put me in contact with the University of Oldenburg, and it looks very promising that I can start a PhD program in Energy Informatics there.

This will be a long journey and I am very interested to experience it. In fact, scientific research and development in governmentally funded projects is a very interesting setting, which will hopefully keep me interested in my PhD topic for the next 4 to 5 years.