09/2024 Ekaterina Artemeva

Age: 27  |  Nationality: Russian

What are your favorite spots in Potsdam / Berlin / surroundings?

I like non-city places! Berlin and Brandenburg is a nice place for me because it has a lot of parks and forests.

What are the places and moments that make you feel home here?

The moments, when I go through the city or ride a bike and understand that I don’t need to use online maps anymore. This feeling gives a lot of security, and as for me, this is the most important in a “home-place”.

You won the DAAD prize for your social commitment, among other achievements. Where have you been involved, and has this contributed to you feeling part of a community here?

I am helping in the project called Play that organized festivals and play spaces for children from the families with refugee background. These meetings are always very warming because children and their parents are extremely happy to participate in such events and, hopefully, they can forget for some time about the hard aspects of the refugee life and enjoy the playing activities. And surely I met a lot of kind and open-hearted people there!

Tell us about your degree program. How did you get interested in your field of study? What are the classes you like most in your program?

I studied Germanistik in my bachelor. I was always fascinated by how a language works in humans, and decided to expand my professional knowledge to the cognitive and generative linguistics. My favorite classes are those where a professor can show how beautiful and diverse languages can be, and how we can account for all these differences in generalizing over the entire population.

Your studies are in English – what about your German skills?

To be honest, my German skills are better than the English ones. Also, I am one of those people who claim that this is not a complicated language at all. I just had very good teachers who could show me the beauty of it. I appreciate it a lot, and tried to show it myself, when I was teaching German for some time.

What are your summer highlights in Potsdam / Berlin?

My summer highlight this year would be the canoeing course in Hermannswerder in Potsdam. Great views from the middle of the lakes and a bit of sun.

What is most surprising thing about Germany for you?

I would say rather about Berlin: if you’re new in a city and you want to speak German with someone – forget about it, unless you are at the Ausländerbehörde or the doctor.

Your future plans:

To have a good rest before a new semester start. And I wish everyone not to forget to have some quality time for yourself!