Miriam van der Linden (Germany)
Miriam was born and raised in the idyllic Münsterland, a region belonging to Germany’s federal state North Rhine-Westphalia. After graduating from high school she travelled to Australia and spent eight months working and travelling mostly on the Westcoast, Southern Australia and Tasmania.
Returning to Germany she moved to Göttingen in 2011 to study English Philology and Cultural Anthropology. During the last year of her Bachelor studies she came across a poster of the Euroculture programme hanging in the corridors of the University of Göttingen. After further examining the programme and getting to know the Euroculture staff in Göttingen, she was convinced to apply. As a student of the Euroculture cohort of 2015-2017, she stayed in Göttingen for the first term, but soon fell for Bilbao and the Basque Country, where she spent the second and fourth semester. In her master thesis she focused on the meaning of cultural heritage, both in its material and immaterial forms. Right now she is living in Hamburg and working as a research assistant for the Institute of European Integration of the University of Hamburg.
I clearly remember the first lecture of “Introduction to Euroculture”. We were asked to shortly present ourselves and say a few words about our academic interests. Soon it became clear that in addition to our diverse personal and academic backgrounds, the variety of academic interests was overwhelming. And this is definitely one of the biggest advantages of the Euroculture programme, that it manages to let a diversity of students grow both academically and personally. I spent the most inspiring and enriching time in Göttingen and Bilbao during the semesters, and in Olomouc at the Intensive Programme. I remember good talks in one of Göttingen’s most recommendable pubs (Check out the Trou!), the sound of the Atlantic Ocean and the view of the Guggenheim Museum (you can actually see it while writing your thesis in the library!). Moreover, the mutual interest among the students, but also shown by professors and coordinators, is definitely something I always valued during those two years. Last but not least, I believe that the personal, professional and academic network, which the Euroculture programme provides, is unique and something I do not want to miss anymore.