Studying in Aarhus – week 3!

“Say this: Røde frugter gelé med fløde!” and other challenging tongue twisters are the moments of pure joy for many of our Danish fellow students. Funnily, the Danes are very well aware how difficult their language (especially the pronunciation) is for many foreigners. Some of us Maastricht ESST students are doing the language course offered by the University (for free!) and/or are attending some Tandem-meetings with friendly Danes willing to teach some Danish by learning/improving another language in turn. (e.g. German, Dutch, etc.)  The possibilities to learn Danish are multifarious, however, we are still struggling with the pronunciation of seemingly simple sentences. Yet no time to give up!

We already made our first interactive study abroad experiences! So far, we had 3 double-seminar-sessions – we meet every Wednesday from 9am until 4pm, have some 15 minutes breaks in between and one hour lunch break from 12 to 1pm. This is usually the time when we intermingle in the canteen – students and teaching staff are sitting together at long tables and have easy chats during lunch. Affordable food, cosy atmosphere, and yummy!

The seminars were structured on following topics: IT in historical perspective, IT and infrastructure, material agency, material hermeneutics, configuring the user, participatory design – and the final one next Wednesday will be on surveillance and IT. Although it might be unclear at the beginning what these topics actually mean, the readings are usually written in an easily approachable style so are the down-to-the-earth explanations of the ESST lecturers and tutors – in Aarhus as well as in Maastricht.

From a theoretical perspective, the ESST specialization in Aarhus builds neatly on the content of the first semester in Maastricht.  Many authors we are discussing here, were part of our readings and discussions in Maastricht as well – just to name few: Wiebe Bijker, who is professor of Technology & Society at our home University of Maastricht and was the first scientific coordinator of ESST, and together with Trevor Pinch has developed the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach to elaborate on questions such as How do social groups shape the development of a technological artifact? We also extensively discussed Bruno Latour and his Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to come to terms with questions like How to make sense and analyse human and material agency? In comparison to Maastricht, the ESST specialization in Aarhus puts rather emphasis on material agency though.

So far, the seminar sessions were very dynamic and lively – just as it is usually at our home University Maastricht. The major difference between our ESST sessions in Maastricht and Aarhus is that we usually met in Maastricht 3 times a week à 2 hours plus one or two lectures per week (varying from module to module); in Aarhus we just meet once a week and experience a full-blown working day – which might be at first sight more intense than in Maastricht but considering that we have no other official interactions for the rest of the week, the Aarhus seminars remain few (in total 4 meetings for the second semester).

Another organisational difference is while the meetings in Maastricht are based on lectures and discussions of our readings and learning goals, in Aarhus we start with a lecture which presents in the end a question related to our preparatory readings – we are asked to form into small work groups (3 students per group) and to prepare a short presentation (ca. 10-15 min.) after half an hour of preparation time. After the presentations we round-up our long day with a final discussion. The group works are quite fruitful for the understandings of the texts, yet two of these “spontaneous” and quick presentations (one for each seminar) in one day is indeed demanding – but in the end helpful when it comes to prepare the writing assignment (2-3 pages per seminar) at the end of the week, which however will not be graded but is aimed at improving writing skills. Finally, we are strongly encouraged to meet up again in our small working group independently to comment each others writing assignments. The group where I am in meet up every friday afternoon for 2 hours and give each other some constructive comments – so  helpful!

……After this, we go to our faculties Friday´s bar and finnish our day with some quite affordable drinks (1 Tuborg for 10 DK, equally to ca. 1,30 Euro!) and get with each bottle better in pronouncing Danish tongue twisters! Skål!

Indtil da, yours Sarah

Bienvenue à Louvain-la-Neuve

Dear readers, apologies for the lack of updates but the last module was our busiest yet — so I’m happy to report that our hard work has paid off as everyone passed the first semester and was able to (officially) go abroad! Congratulations, everyone 🙂

As I mentioned in the first post, I am currently on exchange at the Université Catholique de Louvain where I am specializing in nanotechnologies. I had been to Louvain-la-Neuve before, since my parents live in one of the neighboring villages, but I never ventured further than the shopping mall. What I’ve discovered so far is that Louvain-la-Neuve is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and even though it’s a planned city, it’s more confusing than it looks. My colleagues and I literally spent a day going from square to square, building to building looking for where the internatinoal students office was, where we were supposed to have our class and perhaps more importantly — especially on a student budget — where we could find the best deal for a sandwich. In the end, we were pretty successful and happy to learn that Louvain-la-Neuve has a lot to offer. We were pretty excited to sign up for a subscription to the sports center — €20 for 6 months for every sports activity you could dream of! (and this may or may not include parachuting lessons).

The building and set-up of the classes here at Louvain are so ‘picturesque’. For example, there are chalkboards and the students sit at desks that are facing the board as we listen to lectures by our professor and his assistent. After years of round-table PBL discussions in Maastricht, I was actually pretty happy to sit back and listen to a professor speak about a topic while I could take notes. (although last week we had a debate which everyone seemed to really enjoy). The seminars focus on the ethical aspects around technological innovation and the material we’ve discussed so far has been very interesting. Next week our professor has planned a conference for us where we will look further into the governance of nanotechnologies. It looks like the conference is split up into three parts:

1. Nanotechnologies, State of Regulation vs. State of Science
2. On Governing: Risks and Politics of Nanotechnologies
3. Closing Session. Discussion on Nanotechnologies, from Regulations to Risks.

I’m excited about what we’re going to learn and also that we get the opportunity meet  with people that are involved in the field of science and politics and discuss various issues with them. But that’s next week. This week I’m going to spend some time at the library as I go more in-depth into my research as I look for a thesis topic. That’s all for now, time to get to work!

Grace

Semester abroad: Arriving in Aarhus – week 1!

Hej, lykkelig, glæde og forventningsfuld!

This and more inexpressible words are the new sounds of communication one hears when arriving in Aarhus. (Spell: Ooohus) Aarhus in Denmark is the city I chose for my second semester of ESST (from 01.02. – 30.06.2011). I will be attending the specialization “Analysing IT, Organisation and Agency” (see for more information: http://www.esst.eu/master/specializations/aarhus.htm), because it appeals to my interests of how technologies (internet for instance) mediate moral values and how society can shape technologies in turn. The theories (like postphenomenology) we will be discussing here go beyond the standard claim that society is technologically determined – instead we will focus on the normative impact of how values, ideas about identity, etc. are being mediated, shifted, enhanced and what this means for politics of knowledge in general.

Aarhus is windy, cold but sunny today! Alex, co-ESSTler and my boyfriend, and I came from Maastricht till here by car which was fully packed with stuff, expectations and anxieties. We had never been in Aarhus before and did not know how our accommodation would look like and how the University will be. Luckily we arrived well and moved into a lovely house with a backyard shared with four other international students. We have a double room on the top floor which was offered by the international office of Aarhus University (for student-couples there are luckily special “rights” 🙂 ).

1km from our accommodation down the street is the university, library, science park and student house. The forest is near (1km) which ends directly at the beach (2kms). There are many offers by the University to finally realize my new years resolution of doing -…of course, what can it be?- some sports. More information on Aarhus University activities:http://www.au.dk/en/exchange/arrivingandlivingindk/oncampusfacilities/

The introduction week was rich of events: there were presentations hold on Danish Culture, Academic Culture in Denmark (about expectations and grading system), a funny interactive language session (where we were vehemently encouraged to sing loudly “We will rock you” in Danish following the lyrics on the lecture slides…), a flea market on the Campus along with some refreshments like sandwiches and soft drinks. A remark concerning food prices: the prices in the discount supermarkets (e.g. Aldi, Netto, etc.) are more or less like in Maastricht – which means not cheap. One exception: meat and some fresh vegetables are a kind of luxury item especially when being a student looking for offers. But my hopes raised when I heard about a fish market close to the harbour, which needs to be discovered asap!

The Danes we met outside the Campus (when getting lost in the many alleys of the beautiful old city center of Aarhus) were very open, friendly and caring with good English language skills. The same counts for the academic environment like the  student house staff, international center and housing department – who managed to organise everything as smooth as possible. More on Aarhus University and their information for exchange students on: http://www.au.dk/en/exchange/welcome/

4 other ESST students from Maastricht chose as well Aarhus University for the second semester (one among them is Jessica writing as well in this blog), we form the largest group of ESST Maastricht in a host University. Additionally there will be few other ESST students from other countries. I am excited to experience our first seminar! It will start coming Wednesday from 9am until 4pm for which we have to be prepared for two seminars (seminar 1 and 2). Moreover, we are asked to write for each seminar a short essay about our readings (summary plus reflections). This is already a difference to the ESST program at Maastricht University: we had two until three seminars per week à two hours plus lectures. The writings/presentations for the seminars varied from module to module though.

The days are getting longer and longer and the sea is becoming tempting…our backyard is waiting for some bbq´s. With these inspirations I hope the topic for my master thesis is getting in good shape – another of my new years resolutions……

More about the ESST course in Aarhus next week,

Indtil da, Sarah

Module 5, Day 1.

Amazon.com has finally sent me ‘The Paradox of Scientific Authority: The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies‘ … just in time for Module 5.

To be honest when I first read the title of the course, ‘the Politics of Knowledge’, I wasn’t sure what to think so I went into the lecture yesterday with a fairly open mind. Our tutor, Jens Lachmund, gave us an introduction to the course and seeing how enthusiastic he was, I’m now also pretty excited about the issues covering the relationship between science, technology, politics, ethics, etc. that we’ll discuss in the seminars throughout this block. I feel this part of the program tie together the four other modules we participated in the first semester and also that a few of the seminars will give me some useful background knowledge for the Master thesis I will write in the Spring, particularly the topics about risk assessment and policy making. Module 5 is, for most of us, our last module in Maastricht. The first semester of the ESST program is meant to introduce us to the general field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). In the second semester, we’re given the option to take a semester abroad at one of the partner universities of the ESST network. This experience will give us the opportunity to specialize in our own fields of interest. In February I will be going to the Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve where I will participate in the ‘Nanotechnologies & Societies’ specialization. You can check out where some of the other ESST students will be specializing here.

This afternoon I’ll start reading for the seminar we have on Friday. I’ll still also have tomorrow to prepare, but part of my New Years Resolutions is to stay organized and get my work done on time  (We’ll see how long this lasts…) so I’m going to try and get a head start. On the bright side, two of my fellow ESST colleagues had sent the core literature around even before the holidays so now I can easily work from home– thank you.

Until next time,
Grace

Welcome to the ESST blog!

From now on, five students of Maastricht University’s master’s programme European Studies on Society, Science and Technology (ESST) will blog here about their experiences. The blog will focus on the academic content of the study programme on the one hand, and student life in Maastricht on the other hand. More information about ESST can be retrieved here.