en
PhD
Academia: Far from Home When you start studying , you are likely to get immersed in an international melting pot. This is what Peder encountered when he started working at the TU/e. He describes what this was like. Text & Images: Peder Isager, PhD student within HTI
As an early career researcher, uncertainty dominates many aspects of your working life. However, one thing is certain about academia: it tends to be a good excuse to see the world. I am a small-town boy from rural Norway. I have never considered myself the globetrotting type. Yet, somehow, since completing my master’s degree I have worked in three different countries, have friends in at least ten, and have lived away from my home country for over three years. Here is how that happened, and some observations I’ve made along the way. Whether or not you travel, academia tends to bring the world to your doorstep. When I did my bachelor’s at the University of Oslo, my supervisor was a German, previously working at a Portuguese university. My master’s supervisor did her PhD at Oxford, and was collaborating with researchers from all over; many of whom I got a chance to meet as well.
Roughly half of my fellow master students were international. Classes were always in English and were taught by researchers from various countries. When you travel you find that academia, everywhere, is a melting pot of scholar globetrotters crisscrossing each other’s paths. In 2017, after completing my master’s, I got my first taste of working abroad by taking
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep you feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J.R.R Tolkien a job as a research assistant in Linköping, Sweden, for a summer. I stayed with a couple from Mexico who were planning on moving to the Netherlands, worked on a project with a post-doc from Australia, and played board games with colleagues from Italy, India, USA, Greece, Sweden, and Germany. Linköping, it turns out, was just the first taste. After wrapping up my summer job I was offered a 4-year PhD position in Eindhoven. Upon arrival I was immediately 10
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