Students are the new McKinsey!

Before leaving to Sweden I had the awesome opportunity to participate in a consulting project for a big plant manufacturer comprising a few hundred days of work. This was an awesome and very valuable experience I would not want to miss! How I got this possiblity? From the world leading student consultancy GalileiConsult e.V.! Well, at least world leading in Germany. Or let's say in Baden-Württemberg ... or around Heidelberg ... but world leading! ;) (Actually we really do work all over Germany ... For more information on student consulting see GalileiConsult e.V. (German, sry), BDSU (German, sry) or JADE (English, yay!))

The reason why I tell you this is my advice especially for the German students: Join your nearest student consultancy - it is worth it! ;) Not only if you want to become a consultant (I definitely do not want to become one!) but also if you want to experience a unique atmosphere (both working and personal)! (Besides, you can earn quite an amount of money if you do it right. ;) )

 

The reason why I brought up this topic at all is a big German newspaper reporting about "us" consultants recently. :) Die Welt wrote a short article about student consultants (sry, German again ...) which gives a nice insight in what we are and what we do.

Concluding with further info material I would like to recommend our very own GalileiConsult e.V. blog where you can find news about our work from time to time and - yes, mea culpa, not very modest - an article about quality management I wrote some time ago and which gives an insight in our quality standards. (What else could you expect from a studied pedant aka physicist ;) ) It was published on this exact blog and - a little fancier with nice colours - in the first edition of a new career magazine (pdf page 34) by the Campushunter magazin. Enjoy! (Or laugh about the swollen pseudo-consultant writing style.^^)

Lund's cathedral and the giant

In the crypt of the cathedral of Lund you can find a pillar with the relief of a giant embracing it. The story of how the giant got there is the following:

Once upon a time a holy man named Lawrence arrived at the coast of Sweden in Skåne to preach the gospel. For that purpose he wanted to build a house of god, a cathedral. Unfortunately, of course, he did possess neither the means nor the strength to do so on his own. But at the time there lived a family of giants in the hills of helgona nearby and one of them went to enquire about St. Lawrence, concerned of what the holy man was up to. When the giant learned what St. Lawrence desired he promised him the following: "Listen carefully, holy man, to my words. I will build the temple you desire so much for you. But when you cannot tell me my name until the time I am finished you will give me either the sun or the moon or else your eyes!" This he said because all giants keep their names hidden from the world or if anyone finds out they must cease to exist.

As holy Lawrence lacked any other possiblities he agreed upon this bargain. So the giant started to build the cathedral and it progressed rapidly and turned out to be even more impressive than St. Lawrence had ever imaged. But soon came the day that the cathedral was almost finished and St. Lawrence wandered around restlessly, pondering how he could find out the giant's name. On the last day when there was only one stone left to be set St. Lawrence came by the hills of Helgona and there he heared a woman giant sing to her child:

"Sleep sleep my baby dear,

Tonight your father Finn will be here.

Then sun and moon you shall have from the skies

Or else the holy man Lawrence's eyes."

At once St. Lawrence hurried back to the cathedral and shouted up the roof where the giant was sitting to put the last stone: "Finn, Finn, take care how you put the stone in as it is the last one!" Furious with rage the giant flung the stone towards St. Lawrence and rushed down to the ground. "Never shall this church be finished!", he roared and grabbed one of the pillars of the crypt to tear down all of the cathedral. But he was too late. With his name revealed to the world he turned into stone, bearing the weight of the cathedral he himself built over his head for ever and ever.

Since that day a giant has embraced one of the pillars in Lund's cathedral and something has always been missing from the cathedral.

Screw this nanosh*t, I will become a barkeeper!

Yesterday I worked at my nation's nightclub bar, mixing drinks, talking to people, wiping the counter ... It was as fun as I thought it would be, yeah! I am sure, Halland's Klubb 3 is the coolest club in town, as well as Halland's pub is probably the coolest pub. ;) (How cool is a pub that looks like an old library?! - I hope to get some fotos soon.)

Halland Klubb 3 - Picture from Halland's facebook page

 So I think I will quit studying physics, quit thinking about quantum entaglement and carbon nano-processors and open my own pub - just like the Sonderbar in good ol' Heidelberg! Legend says the Sonderbar's owner graduated with 1,0 after studying law - which is said to be impossible, I think. Instead of becoming a lawyer and making money as much as Bill Gates he just left everything behind and opened the second-coolest pub in Heidelberg. (The coolest one is of course the Brass Monkey.) My pub will of course be named Zum lokalen Dreibein! (Physics nerd stuff ... You might translate it to The local trihedron.) For the beginning: Maybe see you in Klubb 3 until then!

(Out of context: There is an amazing book where the main character becomes a bartender after his adventures: The Kingkiller Chronicle - one of the beste books I ever read - and I read many. ;) )

Heidelberg best of all German universities!

Some time ago the latest QS world university ranking was published and behold! Heidelberg is the top German university and ranks on the 50th place of all universities! BÄM! I took this as a reason to dig up some other rankings and compose a little hymn of praise to my beloved alma mater. :) (For fast readers: Overall conclusion at the very bottom.)

Where the top ranking itself should be no surprise as it is known that Heidelberg has an excellent reputation, the first place from all German universities is a happy event! :) If you dig a little deeper you will find that in specific subjects Heidelberg will be (of course - this is statistics) ranked even higher. While with physics (world rank 35) or the faculty of natural science (world rank 39) which is of special interest to me of course, it is not the highest ranked German university anymore it very much is e.g. in medicine (world rank 36).

To keep the physicist's principle of operation upright I also looked at some other recent rankings to verify the results and behold again! in the Shanghai rating Heidelberg is listed as second on rank 54 right after the TU Munich on rank 50. In the mood of this article this is of course close to nothing and so in the 1-sigma range, Heidelberg remains on the first place. ;)

The Die Zeit's CHE ranking does not give any places and it is required to register to see it so I did not link it here, but nevertheless I took a close look at the ranking and in all the interesting fields like for example citations per publication, third party financing, teaching variety, research reputation or promotions per professor Heidelberg ranks in the top groups as well!

The Times Higher Education World University Ranking will be published on Wednesday 2 October - we will see what it brings.

So what is the conclusion? Well, although rankings like this do not count too much we can conclude that we have an awesome and world-famous university in Heidelberg. Hell yeah!

From Lund to Halland over Västra Götaland to Lund

No, that is not the route of my last journey. On my last journey I went to the 384th dimension of hyperspace (not kidding) but that is another story to be told at another place. From Lund to Halland over Västra Götaland to Lund is the route of our victory! We means Hallands Nation in this case and our victory was achieved over our evil arch-enemy Västgöta Nation, harr! Well, kidding this time, we are best friends. :) (In fact, I would have joined VG if it had not been for Hallands.)

So on 13 September on beer crate horses (they were empty though - no alcohol excesses involved) we rode to face our vicious opponent and accomplished our crushing victory, spinning swords (or rather ourselves with our heads on hockeysticks - they kind of like this strange game here, I did not yet figure our, why) and shouting our ferocious battle songs! (This part is actually true.)

What is actually behind this story is a competition that Hallands and VGs traditionally hold with their novisch (the name speaks for itself) to get to know people, Swedish games and to have a good time - mission totally accomplished! Awesome people (yes, Hallands and VG), awesome atmosphere and an awesome party afterwards. The details of the party are classified though because of a Finnish-Netherlands-German covert operative undertaken at this very same evening as well.

As consolation here is an image of the dignified Halland ambassadors holding the hard-earned trophy:

 

(The blurry image results from the energy vibrating in the air and deflecting the light!)

Well, well, well, a blog ...

Well, well, well, a blog ... Now it is real and this is the first post. Why did I start a blog now? After some consideration the question was rather "Why not?" than "Why?". As I tend to muse more than is good for a single person anyway ;) I just did it and here it is. Feel free and even feel welcomed to comment, contact me and feedback - everything is welcome. :)

Furthermore, I received some enquiries now and then about what is going on in Sweden where I currently live so this will cover some of it. As I was thinking of blogging just for fun anyway depending on how the blog develops I will post some stuff about music and science (yeah!) now and then that I think all of you could be interested in - trying to explain understandable for everybody as is my credo when it comes to science. (Possible to be looked up in the collected works of Markus Hellenbrand at the University of Heidelberg.) ;)

Ah I should not forget some cool pictures so here you go:

(Just kidding ...)

Let's plunge right into action with the latest news from Lund!