What is it like to study at TUM, far away from China? Moreover, what are my expected career prospects thereafter? On 09 December 2016, over 20 Engineering Master Students interested in such questions, participated in the event “Alumni for students” in Beijing. This personal PhD experience sharing, organized by TUM Beijing, gave them the opportunity to gain more information on the two TUM alumni’s academic and professional career in Germany and China. The alumnus Prof. QU Weidong is Director of the Property Tax and Assessment Center within Renmin University of China’s School of Land and Real Estate Management. From 2009 to 2011, he spent 18 months as a Humboldt research scholar at TUM and was honored with the title of TUM Ambassador in 2013 – a distinction that is awarded to international visiting scholars who rendered outstanding services to TUM during and after their sojourn. A warm welcome was also given to alumnus Dr. LUO Qibin, who earned his doctorate in Gene-Directed Bioinformatics at TUM from 2008 to 2012. After returning to China, Dr. Luo set up his own start-up company QY NODE, which specializes in providing bioinformatics analysis for medical treatments. As different as their personal experience has been, the audience was likewise fascinated from the alumni’s individual insight into research and career development at TUM, as well as the subsequent career prospects in research and industry.
Ms. REN Jie, Head of Research Promotion of DAAD’s Beijing Office, was invited to give a talk on the PhD and research system of Germany. Thereafter, TUM Beijing liaison officer, Ms. JIN Zhenshan, elaborated on research and PhD opportunities at TUM, and particularly went into detail about challenges regarding application procedure and requirements for Chinese students. At the end, many participants further seized the opportunity to network and to discuss remaining questions with the two alumni.
This event is part of the series “Alumni for Students”, a popular format amongst Chinese students to directly connect with TUM alumni and TUM Beijing in order to find out more about life in Germany, Munich and TUM and to learn more about potential career prospects. TUM is one of the most sought-after German universities for Chinese students. It comes thus as no surprise that students from China also form the largest international student group at TUM in recent years. (JIN Zhenshan/ ZHOU Qinya)