March 09th 2020

International Experience at MCI

Bhargav Pawar from India, currently doing his master's in Environmental, Process & Energy Engineering shares his experiences at MCI ...

"To begin with, the city - Innsbruck is a very lovely city and I'd say its the perfect balance between nature and civilisation, with a nice blue river, clean white snow, mountains, greenery and quiet surroundings. It’s neither too remote nor too metropolitan. And I must say, I never even knew a city like Innsbruck existed until I joined MCI.

Moving from Mumbai, one of the most densely populated cities in India, to Innsbruck has been one of the most “drastic” life changing experience I’d say, in a good way though. That was the first biggest challenge of a challenging journey which was about to begin. Upon arrival there are a lot of things to be done initially like finding your way to your own apartment, getting ourselves registered, starting a bank account, getting a sim card etc. which for a non german speaking person can be a nightmare, but thanks to the MCI Buddy, she took care of everything and my start was really very smooth.

When the course started, I found out that I was the only international and non german speaking student in my class, which felt quite intimidating at first, but the professors were very considerate and sensitive towards me, which made me feel comfortable towards interacting in the class. With the students I’d say it is slightly difficult because everyone speaks German and most of them know each other from their previous course or they come from the same town, so they easily form friendship among themselves. And also, they are not so comfortable speaking in English so that is a slight barrier there. However, despite that everyone is nice and helpful.

The next challenging part began after 4-5 weeks, and it was the weather – cold, dry & almost no sunlight. Coming from a hot, humid & all year round bright & sunny city, it was a tough job to get out of the bed and get going for the day, everyday! This became a mesmerising time for me after the snowfall as I experienced the snow for the first time ever. Even after a few months, I can’t help but slow down and appreciate the beauty of the view while cycling to college everyday.

To sum it up, I feel joining MCI & moving to Innsbruck is the best decision I made, it has been a great learning & empowering journey until now, and will continue to be in the semester’s that are about to come. I am looking forward to the exchange semester offered by MCI, one of the main reasons to choose this over other universities, which will give me an exposure to a new place, culture, college and people and embolden my spirit further to take on the future challenges in life."

Bhargav Pawar

(M.Sc. Environmental, Process & Energy Engineering)