In Esslingen, 7 April

"Coronavirus – This is the hot topic in almost every discussion nowadays, be it with friends, family or colleagues at work. Such has been the impact this pandemic has had all over the world. Tracking and following the trend on a daily basis is almost everybody´s favourite activity now. The greatest challenge I think for everyone is to suddenly adapt to this digital lifestyle without any direct human interaction. We are so much used to our previous DDM schedule that we hardly had any time. We always wanted some time to take a breather. But now all we want is for this to be over so that everyone can go back to their normal lives.

Personally, I feel the essence of an International Masters Program is to build good rapport and network in the industry and gain exposure to the working environment and different cultures. This is especially difficult if we don’t have direct interaction with people. Another concern is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to apply for Master Thesis because the companies are either temporarily shutdown or in Kurzarbeit. A lot of the research activities are currently on hold in most companies as they are also uncertain about the future. Ofcourse a global phenomenon of this scale affects economy heavily. The impact of this on the Job market especially the Automotive sector is something which I think will be interesting, since majority of the companies are undergoing transformation towards E-Mobility.

I really appreciate the efforts of Graduate School, Hochschule Esslingen in organising the online lectures. This has really helped in keeping us engaged and utilize the time effectively. Else it would have been really difficult to imagine being self-quarantined having nothing to do. A typical day for me now consists of attending online lectures and cooking. The latter which I have grown increasingly fond of in the last couple of weeks (and getting better at :) ). Keeping in touch with my family back in India, especially my wife who is constantly worried about the condition here. She was supposed to travel to Germany last week for her Masters Program. But unfortunately, because of the current situation that is not possible. I think the best thing to do right now is to keep ourselves engaged and avoid social interactions so that everything can go back to normal as soon as possible. Until then, Stay at Home and Stay Healthy!