http://www.hesspoint.com

Wow, I still can’t really believe I am going to China.

I thought about going to China for study or work for quite a while now. During my studies it never worked out though. Then I heard about this scholarship program, called Heinz Nixdorf Programm. Heinz Nixdorf, by the way was one of Germany’s greatest pioneers in the computer industry and one of Paderborn’s icons. InWEnt organizes this program that offers graduates and young professionals the chance to live and work in one of 8 Asian countries for 6 months to gain work- and intercultural experience. It sounded quite interesting, because China is one of the countries in the program and the professional focus is on information and communication technology, which I study. So in September I sent in my application and I was really happy to get an invitation for an interview a few days later. From that moment on I really felt that I could do this and I took quite some time to prepare and did some coaching for job interviews and so on. When I was there, I learned that the competition was very tough, lots of highly qualified people there. Anyway I did my best and I felt quite comfortable during the interview but I was not so sure if I got in because as I said, lots of other very qualified candidates. However a few days ago I got a letter and I almost fainted when I read: "We are happy to tell you…". I did it! I got in! As I said I still can’t quite believe it.
So next year is gonna be very exciting. First I will take an intensive course of Chinese in Germany and starting next Summer, I will be in China. First in Jinan for another Chinese class and then I don’t know where yet. It depends on where I can do my internship.
Anyway I am really happy and excited and I will keep you posted.

The regular readers might have noticed that I didn’t post anything for a few days. The reason is that I participated in the 16. ebs Symposium this weekend. The symposium was organized by the students of the European Business School (EBS) in Oestrich-Winkel, the oldest private business school in Germany. It is located at the River Rhine in a region called Rheingau, one of the most famous wine growing areas in Germany.
The conference’s theme was "The German Angst" - Vertrauen in die Zukunft. German Angst is one of the few German expressions which found its way into the English language, it was coined by "The Economist" and describes the fear of Germans of the future that currently paralyzes Germany’s economy. The best example was the result of the elections last week, which was pretty much a disaster, reflecting the people’s fear of change and reforms that would be so important for this country. The conference tried to evaluate concepts of overcoming the current situation and let Germany rise up to be a strong economy again. Many top class speakers and companies held speeches, workshops and a recruiting fair. Among the speakers were names as Lothar Späth (Merrill Lynch), Alexander Dibelius (Goldman Sachs) or Burkhard Schwenker (Roland Berger).
It was a very interesting and inspiring weekend, not to forget the great food and no one less then Knacki Deuser (the host of the TV comedy show "Nightwash", every Sunday 0:00h on WDR) as the host of the gala dinner.
Of course I wouldn’t be a real geocacher if I didn’t take the chance of sneaking through some vineyards on my way home

This is only a Link for German speaking people:

You can answer some questions and you get a feedback about how good you can market yourself for job applications

Bewerber-Check: - manager-magazin.de

OpenBC is a great business networking platform. It enables you to find new people in the business who you can share expertise and knowlege with. Also it is great to stay in touch with “old” friends for example from university, after everyone has gone into the business world.

Try it out, its free and easy to use.

= Open Business Club (openBC) =