school and work

28 May 2024

The plight of the generalist

My career is colorful, and I’ve been struggling to find my place in corporate culture – because corporate culture is a place that only wants to see specialists and does not seem to know what to do with a generalist like me. I have such diverse experience – and I have a PhD, something that is incredibly challenging to accomplish, and that not a lot of people succeed in. Regardless, I never seemed to meet the requirements of “X years of experience in topic Z” that is dominating most job openings in the eyes of recruiters. Or it doesn’t count […]

17 January 2013

How the Scandinavians shaped England

Exam time is coming up, that means it’s time for another verbose blog entry about the history of English stuff – in this case, the vikings (yes!). English, though rooted in the West Germanic family, has had significant influence from the Old Norse language (part of the North Germanic language family). So much, that a Norwegian professor even claims that English is a Scandinavian language. That’s of course ridiculous, you could just as well claim that English is a Romance language because of its huge amount of French influence. But the language is still very Germanic at heart. As Bill […]

25 August 2011

Life Changing

It’s been a long, long time in the making and now it’s finally reality: from October onwards, I’m officially a full-time student! I don’t believe it either! I will be attempting a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Linguistics at the University of Düsseldorf. How and why? A few years ago a new law was introduced in Germany, which allows people with a completed vocational training (Ausbildung) plus three years of practical experience in that same job to either apply for university in the same field or to take an exam if they want to study a different field. This January […]