Nostalgia

Taking the train from Berlin to Chemnitz added a very special nostalgia to my homecoming. The train brought me right through my college town Mittweida. Mittweida is a spot on the map, a small town where the number of senior citizens outnumbers that of students. This is, where I spent four years of my life studying Media Management.

The first thing people ask you once you decided on your academic path is “What are you gonna do with it?” Well, work at a TV network? Be an editor at a newspaper, a journalist? Venture into marketing? Who would have thought of a Media Management graduate ending up in economic development? Five years after graduation, I am successful and happy in my role as a consultant for SME development in the Philippines, mastered my Master in Journalism, and cannot imagine living in Germany any time soon.

Should I have shared my story with the second year media student traveling next to me? I’m overhearing his phone call with one of his batch mates. Seems they flunked a subject. His voice is calm, a bit angry though. Angry about the professor who, in his eyes completely arbitrarily, flunked him. He say, he’ll trying to talk to him later. There is talks about another project he has to submit… media marketing… due end of October… last chance…

This all sounds so familiar! I’m dying to learn who the professor is. Do I know him? I decide not to ask and not to share my story. He’s nervously adjusting his big-rimmed glasses, shutting down his laptop, getting ready to get off as the recorded female voice in the train announces: Naechste Haltestelle: Mitweida. The guy gets off. I bite my tongue and keep my “good luck!” to myself. Although this is what I seriously wish him. Not just with his paper. But with his ability to think out of the box once he leaves college, with his media degree in hand.