27.06.2008
Nermeen from Egypt: “The rules that apply make things easy. Academic life is very effective here and I like that”.
Nermeen Nabih has been in Ulm for one and a half years now and still doesn’t want to buy a one-way ticket home to Egypt. (Copyright: Baden-Württemberg International)
“Only three days after I had arrived in Germany, some people took me to a trip to the Alps. Isn’t that amazing?” Homesickness is not a problem for her at all – she feels very much at home in the small town near the border between Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. Nermeen Nabih has been in Ulm for one and a half years now and still doesn’t want to buy a one-way ticket home to Egypt. On the contrary – last Easter she invited some of her friends from Baden-Württemberg to spend the holidays with her parents in Cairo.
“I pursue my professional interests and only afterwards do I think of the proper place to go,” explained the 26-year old master student in the international Advanced Materials programme. There was no alternative for her precise academic interests. And Ulm seems perfect for her. Having graduated in chemistry at the American University in Cairo, she knew that she wanted to stay within the field of “small dimensions”. The focus of her studies today is on nanomaterials.
The course, she says, combines physics, chemistry and engineering. The students come from different majors with a variety of knowledge backgrounds and in the first semester there is a lot of work to be done to keep up with the others in scientific areas that are completely new.
Maybe next summer Nermeen will have time to take part in the famous Nabada ceremony (http://www.schwoermontag.com/nabada/). Because she had to prepare exams last year, she could only watch the hundreds of people bobbing down the Danube in their little home-made boats. This time she wants to actively take part.
“Although Ulm is totally different from Cairo, I could easily adjust. The rules that apply make things easy – everybody knows what he or she has to do. Academic life is very effective here and I like that,” Nermeen declares. Having worked for the German company Degussa in Cairo for three years after her B.Sc., she knows what she is saying: home is where you can pursue your interests. And if she urgently needs some sun during the cold Swabian winter, Cairo is only a four-hour flight away.
More:
http://www.uni-ulm.de/ http://www.uni-ulm.de/adv-mat/
