Atréju Tauschinsky

My motivation to study physics in Kenya

February 2005

Already before I even started my studies of physics, I was quite convinced I wanted to go aborad at some point - now the time has come, and I will explain a little about this wish.

During high school, I spent one year in the United States - this was not only a valuable experience for my personal development but also showed me how important exchange programs are to facilitate cultural understanding between different countries. Therefore, I wanted to experience this again ever since I got back from the United States. Right now is the best time for me to go abroad without disrupting my studies in Germany too much and I was already looking at different countries, when I first heard about the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange. But the prospect of going to Kenya challanged as well as excited me so much that I decided very quickly that Kenya is the place I wanted to go to.

There are different academic as well as personal reasons why I consider Kenya such a good choice and I will try to elaborate on them here.

Even going to the seemingly very exotic destination Africa it is still important for me to go to a university where I can learn some interesting physics. In Kenya, this seems to be possible as it has some of the best universities in sub-Saharan Africa. From what former exchange students tell there seems to be small classes providing for a very intimate climate of teaching, and the students are very interested as well. There seem to be very interesting possibilities for me in Nairobi since I am interested in laser physics and optics as well as environmental physics both of which I should be able to pursue there very well. Especially the collaboration between the Institute of Environmental Physics in Bremen and the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange would make it possible for me to do a 4th year project involving the DOAS station operated by the Institute of Environmental Physics in Bremen in Nairobi. This provides for a perfect combination of the fields I am interested in.

In the course of the Bologna Process and the reforms in the German educational system the comparison to a country with a working Bachelor/Master-system seems vital to me to make informed statements about the development in Germany.

So far I do not know very much about most parts of Africa. I have never before been to any African country at all. German media coverage is very poor and who ever I talk to does not seem very well informed either. This makes very clear how much need there is to strengthen the kind of cultural exchange this program will have as an important side-effect. I do think Kenya is very different from the countries I have spent a longer time in so it will be a new and challanging but very valuable experience for me.

Due to my experience in the United States and during several longer vacations in developing countries I think I can cope very well with the big cultural changes I will encounter by going to Kenya.

I would be delighted if I could take part in the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange and to thereby make a contribution to this exchange program as well as German-Kenyan relations.