Final Countdown

My last month in Vienna turned out to be more hectic than expected. Even though I never felt like a semester on “Erasmus” is all about discovering a new country, making trips and socializing in various ways, I still felt overflown with everything that had to be done right after Christmas. Compared to my regular term in Rotterdam, I was taking twice as many courses that lasted twice as long and yet had the same credit value. As a bonus, it was only then when I fully realised that I will be taking four exams within two days without any chance to retake them. The pressure was real! So instead of Austrian cities, I spent most of my January discovering libraries of different university departments and improving my packed lunches preparation skills.

Nevertheless, several weeks of limited daylight exposure yielded fruitful results: I managed to pass all my courses with satisfactory results. Therefore, I don’t need to compensate for any of them in this semester, which would be quite complicated and I can pay full attention to the thesis and two last compulsory courses. First of them is Communication Ethics, where we insofar got familiar with various ethical perspectives and now we are applying these principles to various dilemmas which we may encounter in our future careers or which form central parts of various media contents (Have you ever realized that Albus Dumbledore is a pure utilitarian? Me neither, until last week…). In this sense, the course is somehow similar to the other class I’m taking now, which is Media Audiences and Effects. There we use various texts, movies and TV shows to understand theories about impacts of consuming various media contents, such as to what extent can violent content spark negative emotions in us or how strong female characters can possibly silence chauvinist voices in the society.

However, when these two courses are over in four weeks, there’s no escape from the thesis. It might be because I’m at the very beginning of the process and I don’t realize all the work ahead of me, but at this point, I’m actually looking forward to it. I believe that if I pick a topic that can be researched really thoroughly, there will be enough opportunities to finally figure out what aspects of my study area I genuinely enjoy and what I would like to do in the coming years. Nevertheless, it will still be necessary to make some preliminary decisions in this sense in the coming weeks, as the application deadlines for various master’s degrees is approaching rather fast.

Luckily I have plenty of time to think about near and distant future now. I celebrated my return to Rotterdam quite magnificently – by spraining my ankle while getting off the train from the airport. I’m thus forced to limit my outdoors activities to a bare minimum in the coming weeks. However, this little incident provided me with a unique opportunity to get familiar with the Dutch healthcare system for the very first time in more than two years. I believe that convincing my insurance company to cover the costs of this lovely experience will be even more fun! Well, one must admit that studying abroad can be an enriching experience even when it comes to such not-so-gleeful events.

And if you managed to read this far, be treated with a rather rare view of sunlit Rotterdam almost from the porch my new residence (a suitable name for something that was probably a maid’s room before, judging by the size). Quite OK, right?