Yogita Kuchankar is an engineering student studying Materials Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She spent two months as a research intern at the Web Literacy Lab of FH JOANNEUM and would like to share the experience she had at our university.
Why did you apply for FH JOANNEUM? What are the most important objectives of your stay?
I have always been interested in Communication and Journalism. So, it is my habit to read literature on these topics. One day, I happened to read a publication by Julian Ausserhofer, "National Politics on Twitter: Structures and topics of a networked public sphere" and this got me interested. It was quite easy to find his contact details so I contacted Julian. Fortunately, the department had a few projects that I could work on.
What were the things you were mainly involved at the Web Literacy Lab of FH JOANNEUM?
As a part of the Rescue Project, I was mainly involved with digital methods to study the communication network on social media during emergency situation. I shall also be contributing towards the VALID Project by finding out more methods for data extraction.
What are the main differences between FH JOANNEUM and IIT Kanpur?
One of the major differences is that IIT Kanpur hosts all the buildings together in a closed campus, whereas it is not the same for FH JOANNEUM.This brings a lot of difference in the working style at the two places. Since everybody lives in the campus, sometimes we have classes or exams even as late as 10 pm. The campus life at IIT Kanpur (including a lot of festivals and events) is something all students there can boast of.
Which academic habits of IIT Kanpur would you like to implement here? Which ones would you like to introduce at your own university?
In the little time I spent here, I could see one thing that the academic system in Austria is quite flexible compared to India. One thing that I really like about the system at IIT Kanpur is that we have some compulsory courses and other courses can be selected as open electives, they may be courses from any department. This creates an opportunity to explore the other departments which one might have some interest in.
Which Austrian habits did you notice especially? What do you like about Austria and the Austrians?
One thing that can never go unnoticed is the love of Austrians for Spritzer and Beer. I like the salads here a lot, especially the dressing with pumpkin seed oil. I really like the culture here and the culture is reflected almost everywhere - in the architecture, the festivals here, the music, art and the lifestyle. I really like how everything here is quite liberal and it is upon the residents to decide what is good or harmful for them.
