Brown Magnet and Audio Labs

It has been the inaugural welcome week, it’s been very interesting. There has been a lot of information flow and we are meeting and making new friends from various parts of the world.

The whole feeling is so surreal. Sitting in the classrooms after so long feels so amazing and refreshing. Also, meeting people with whom I was only chatting for so many days also feels wonderful.

Throughout the week, we have been repeatedly told how very hard it is going to balance the extremely challenging coursework, part-time job, social circle, clubs and hobbies. But the challenge is a welcome.

Amongst all this, I am already experiencing the effects of different cultures. For the first time, I truly recognize the comfort that comes of familiarity. I had known it all along, but the environment amplifies the feeling.

Then there was the visit to the Audio lab at Fraunhofer – a dream come true.

Brown Magnet

I realized that I am a Brown magnet. I gravitate towards, and attract other Brown people more. This is not racial comment, rather just a casual observation.

When I was in India I saw people grouping up with people from their own states. Now I see the same thing happening at a different level.

I often find myself striking conversation or being approached by people from similar background. I observe that the humor works similar in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. The pronunciation is similar and it makes it slightly easier to converse.

Whereas, when I speak to people away from India they are different in their body language. It is tough to guess what was meant as a joke.

These are small differences but somehow I now feel they are crucial. Even though we all speak English, it is not the same information we convey with this language. I am thankful to Hollywood which makes some communication common.

Of course, by the end of the course I shall have more in common with the rest. I will hopefully learn their cultures, language and humor.

Audio Labs

Today was also the first lab visit. The excitement felt like that of a 5-year old going to an amusement park. Like the good feel that you get when you are hungry and you get Biriyani?? No? I guess that analogy works only for me. But you get it. It was crazy excitement behind the composed face.

The Audio Labs is one of the FAU facilities which is inside the Fraunhofer research labs. Under my degree program there is a possibility to focus on audio processing. But I am not sure if I will choose that path.

I am not an audiophile but today I know that I experienced good music. I have been to theater halls, but I have never experienced good audio like today’s. I experienced really loud music which still managed to retain its quality.

Then also the demo on audio codecs was cool. The small software in the mobile which converts and transmits the audio goes unnoticed. Today in the demo the codec from GSM and LTE full hd quality were played simultaneously. The difference was significant.

Although it was a cool demo the discussion with the professor slightly dampened the enthusiasm. Since so much is around multimedia and music I had a natural question if one has to be good with music to research in this field. The answer was slightly disappointing. Having a good sense of music is desirable, just like, to find a job easily in Germany knowing German is not necessary but highly desirable.

Now what?

The week hasn’t concluded. This is still the fun part – enjoying the demos and instructions. The tough part is yet to begin – studying. But we are ready for the challenge. We know we will make it just like 40000 other students in the university.