Category: Studies

Whats going on at the university

Posted on

semester started

A few weeks ago the semester started again, and now it seems studies really start.
As we’ve had all mandatory lectures, it’s now up to us to decide on which topics to focus. For myself I chose lightweight contruction and informatics. In construction I chose the path modern materials, having lectures about stuff like composite materials or nondestructive testing. Compared to up to a few hundred people sitting in the mandatory lectures, it’s rather familial now, with just around 10-40 students.
In informatics things are even smaller, as we are only five students! The two lecturers just started this semester, so everything is still new and flexible. In software-engineering we’re ususally sitting in a round of chairs, which sometimes seems more like a self-help group 😉 . The lecturer has quite a bit of practical experience, which he shares with us by interrupting the lectures with short exercises, making us solve quite complex problems in short time.
The other lectures in informatics are similarity mechanics, engineering software and digital product design. While similarity mechanics is quite theoretical, focussing on the theory and use of dimensionless variables, the latter two are rather practical. As there are quite a few doctorands and graduands, specialising in different engineering software, those will hold the lectures about the software they’re using.

Aside the studies I also got a job at one of the aeronautics institutes in the “leighter than air”-group. My first assignment is the design of a gauge, measuring the momentum and force at a small propeller engine.

Thought the weeks are quite busy, it finally feels like I’m getting somewhere, somewhere right.
Cheers everybody,
Tim.

Posted on

Leaving Sydney

Afer over half a year living and (very succesfully) working in Sydney I left the city I fell in love with. With a short hop to Melbourne I start the backpacking-season.
Sitting at the gate, I’m sipping a “Tall Long Black” (a small one would have been a “Short Long Black” 😉 that happens when americans don’t care about local specialities (Starbucks)).
Guess this is a fine time to recapitulate. The things I liked most about Sydney were it’s multicultural lifestyle and it’s live-music scene (Cheers to all the Ska-people and “Waiting For Guinnes”).
The major small things I’ll be missing are the nice walks through the park to the uni, the beatiful glimpses at Sydney Skyline in the sunset from Glebe and the probably friendliest pizzeria around the corner (Boost Cafe Glebe).
In this rather short time I met so many nice people, had heaps of interesting conversations and made lots of new friends (hope I’ll be able to stay in contact with them).
Working at the Uni Sydney was a pleasure and interesting. I enjoyed helping the firstsemesters with their catapult and like to hear what hapened to the hovering platform.
The talks with profs, former students and the staff were really inspiring and I hope I can set up my own small workshop to work on my ideas.

Well, enought of the past, I’ll be boarding any moment.
On the road again, taking the long way home.

Thanks everybody for this nice time,
Tim.

Posted on

… and working in Sydney

Aside all this cultural living, I still manage to do my work for the internship at the aeromech department of the University of Sydney.
Mostly programming at the moment, this is easy, as I usually work at home, whenever I want. KC (my prof) is in some deep trouble at the moment, as both his computers crashed and refuse to work.
While beeing back in germany for two weeks starting next tuesday, I’ll try to keep improving the actual program. With the internet it really doesnt matter where I work, as long as I don’t have to be somewhere physically.

Oh bright future!

Posted on

After the first test!

Numerics is done,
but there’s still more to come!
Next test are technical mechanics 3, higher maths 3, thermodynamics 2 and flowtheory. Gonna be quite stressing!

Posted on

A really relaxed 4th semester

Summertime … weather is fine!
My 4th semester is starting with a really nice summer! Most of the time its quite warm/hot, really nice to hang out at the university between the lectures.
As theres no university thursdays and fridays, the weekends got quite long! 3 days university and 4 days weekend! But after this quite stressing 3rd semester we really needed this!
While learning for the last test, i got the idea to stop studying for a year, and to travel through Austrlia! I’m really looking forward to getting my backpack stuffed, travelling around, seeing new places and meeting new ppl.
As my father gave me the tip about some information-day for students at the Australian Embassy in Berlin, i spent a few days there. Just arriving at the youth-hostel, i met a nice guy (also named Tim) from Australia. Getting into dialogue we decided to pass the afternoon in Berlin together.
We had a look at the Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor and Checkpoint Charly. In between we had some nice talks and (of course) some cold beers. We walked the bars till 1:00 (i had to get to bed a little earlier, as the info-day started at 10:00).
The day at the embassy was really useful! 3 of the 6 universities, represented there, were offering aeronautics. Might be interesting to have a look at them when travelling there!

Posted on

What happend since december 2002

Dec/jan i moved to my new room. My dad really helped much, and we also had kinda fun, painting walls and constructing tables out of what we had in the garage.
Then i had to finish some construction for university till the end of semester(the flaps-mechanism for a small aircraft). Afterwards i had 1-2 Weeks to relax before the learning for the examinations began.
In between i manged to go snowboading to Engelberg (CH) with some firends! Haven’t been on board for about 2 years, but all went fine … i didn’t forget how to do it!
The only bad thing about this trip is, that Sergio (Espace ’87) lost it’s exhaust right in front of Olli’s door! 😉 So the trip back was quite loud!
Right now, I passed the first two tests. TM exam should be OK, but with maths3 i’m quite unhappy. Hope ET, TD and FGK will work out better!

Posted on

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

As we have christmas-holidays right now, i found some time to update my page.

The last few weeks / months of university were quite busy. There was really few time to relax or even party! So I’m doing that right now. Last week i went to a concert of ‘Open Season’ and ‘The Peacocks’ at Stuttgart, after that I had a strange evening with a nice girl at the Club ‘Le Fonque’, the ‘evening’ ended at 800, returning home with the first connection. Last week, my parents, my grandma from Hamburg and me celebrated christmas, gathering, having lots of unhealthy food and even more fun.
Before christmas, my father and me exchanged the old gas tank of my Samurai, which took us three days! After christmas we started to prepare my new room in the house, by clearing it and painting the walls.
As soon as we built the tables and other stuff, I’ll move. After 2 years of cellar, I’m quite happy to see the sunlight again! 😀 (Don’t think my parents stuffed me in the cellar! I chose to do that and they told me 2 years ago I was crazy because of that, maybe I was!)

Right now I’m returning home from a concert of ‘HISS’ at the ‘Schlesinger Int.’. Was really great! Some kind of mixture between Rock and Polka with German lyrics.