2008 – a personal retrospect

2008 – a year of change (not only for the US). Why I’m writing on this? Because I’m ever looking forward, but seldom I take my time to look back and remember what has been done. That is this article for.

2008 was a year of heavy changes for me. After 5 years of struggling (but having fun, too!) I finished my study in computer science with the „Master of Science“ degree. Therefore I moved from Leipzig to Stuttgart in Germany, where I had the chance to work on my master thesis at the Robert Bosch GmbH. This was a challenging time for me, but after all I learned a lot and had fun with some new friends (there was the soccer European championship… unfortunately we lost the final against Spain, but I had a really good time). I got the chance to develop a new ultrasonic-based driver assistance system and brought it to a very good end. In September my thesis was done and after presenting it at my university, my study was finished, too. After getting a national accolade for my Bachelor thesis in 2007, again I’m getting honoured for my Master thesis by my university in January 2009 and I’m really happy about this. It shows me, that my work gets complimented and that I must have something done right 🙂

I was struggling a long time, if I would continue with a doctor thesis or going to profession. During my study I had much fun in algorithmics (general, image processing, artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, …), but in software engineering, too. Due to my private environment and the circumstances of graduating for me in Germany, I decided to start a career. Perhaps I will fetch the doctor later on, but for the moment I really don’t regret my decision! With SDX I found a company in Frankfurt, where I’m feeling at home and where I’m able to learn so many things – I didn’t think before, that I could learn so much in just 3 months now. I get the chance to dive into the most current Microsoft and .NET technologies, including ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, Silverlight, Windows Azure…  And most important for me: there are colleagues, to whom I can look up and who are real inspiring examples for me! I need these guys to see, where I am and where I want to be one day and to be motivated in making progress on my skills (technical and non-technical). Often today, I’m not able to defend my opinions and decisions, because I’m missing many experiences. I’m going to further develop my know-how and make experiences during the next year and later on. But hey: I’m 25 years old and just starting! Thus I’m full of confidence for the next year. I hope, that I’ll never lose my motivation, because it’s making my life worth living. And I hope, that I could find more time on blogging around at this location in 2009 🙂

Some personal annotations: 2008 I could finish my first half marathon (after a meniscus injury stopped me the years before…), where I’m really happy with. I hope to finish another one in 2009 and someday a full Marathon and/or Triathlon over the olympic distance. My carnivorous plants had a mixed year… sorry babies, I neglected you sometimes. Last but not least: my girlfriend found a traineeship position for her teacher profession, which was a big shudder in the last weeks. Now we can build up a family while marrying and making babies and those things 😉 (ok ok, we will not hurry too much ^^).

That’s it for now!

I wish you all some recreative and inspiring Christmas days and a good start into 2009! Let’s make it a good year. Cheers!