Mentioning my colleagues and my workplace requires much more than just a couple of rows, so here I am, pouring my heart out about my workplace. I am a fulltime professor (sounds funny and old) at the University of Szeged, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. I love my job to the fullest and find it extremely hard to relax and stop. As I wrote earlier, I am a recovered workaholic, who sometimes relapses.
In the past couple of months (or in 2022 in general) I have not relapsed so much, thankfully. I am a bit concerned though that I reached what I believe to be the fullest of my potentials there. Which might sound good, but it actually is not. It scares the hell out of me. If you know me, you know that I cannot stop THE progress. I LIVE for the progress. I love becoming better and better at something. If I cannot grow in one area anymore, I need a change and venture into new areas. You see why it is tricky, right? Do me the courtesy and please understand so that I do not have to spill it out for you. Writing it down would make it much more real and I am not there yet.
Anyways, I love my workplace and I love my colleagues. They are the ones to have challenged me to become a teacher and researcher I am today. I am forever grateful. In the past 7 years I learned and grew more than in the 25 years before that (ok, I might be exaggerating, but this is what it feels like).
My faculty (or actually university, as faculty means people, who work at the university) supports me to the fullest. Receiving news of me getting the scholarship of my dreams, they were happy to let me go and try myself in a different country, at a different university. I admire them for this. Well, I would have come here anyway... This is not a chance that you miss out on with or without your own institution's support.
I cannot describe how much I like my close colleagues as well. Our faculty is like a small California for me. No matter who you talk to, (the majority of) people are friendly, outgoing, and most importantly, smart. You can literally feel the IQ and EQ (or at least one of them) in the room. That is where you grow and prosper, if you surround yourself with people like them. I believe to call my closest colleagues my friends, too. But here I am again thinking what reaching your fullest potential at a place feels like. I now certainly have a wider perspective. But am afraid to draw any conclusions just yet.
In exchange of my institutions' gracious support (they let me keep my regular Hungarian job and perks, a.k.a. my salary), I got to keep some of my duties from home. I still work with thesis workers, I am part of certain faculty boards, have some research and EU projects going on, and kept a bunch of late-night or early-morning calls, too. It might not sound like fun, but it's good to be kept in the loop and seeing some friendly faces now and then.
People here in the US keep asking me if I miss home. Honestly, I don't. You know this already. But what I got to realize is that I miss my students. Therefore, I can say that I am a true teacher. Here I am, having the time of my life and I miss teaching. What an irony that I had never wanted to become a teacher. Having seen my mum, who is a special eds teacher, preparing late nights and long weekends for her teaching and other duties, I knew I just did not want this for me or for my family. But I guess you can never escape your tue faith. I just love what I do and love my students to the fullest. I can say that it is my students that I miss the most. For them, I am looking forward to going back to Hungary. But what if I did teaching here, too?
15 September 2022
YOU ARE READING
Memories I am afraid I'll forget
Non-FictionWelcome to my American Days' Journals! I do not particularly have any talent in writing things up from scratch, especially not my own experience as a Fulbright scholar, but you have got to start somewhere, especially if you are too afraid that you'l...
