GRADUATION TALK ▼

STEPPING ON A FUTURE CAREER PATH WITHIN ACADEMIA

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARION FISCHER-NEUMANN

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SHORT PROFILE

Name: Marion Fischer-Neumann
Field: Sociology
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Occupation: Research Assistant at the University of Hamburg

+ Marion's Alumna Profile

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▐ Marion wrote her thesis on the topic: "Social Identities of Immigrants – Bridges or Barriers for their Attitudinal Integration into Politics in Germany". In a short interview she tells us about her interest in an underresearched field, the lessons she learned writing her dissertation and where her career path leads her now.

What drew you to your current field and what interests you most about this field?

M.FN. For me, the main point of interest laid in making a contribution to a still underresearched field of migrant integration. The research on migrant emotional integration allows us to enlighten psychological bases of migrant integration processes. For me this is really fascinating as well as a worthwhile research endeavour because it redirects explanatory potential to the subjective perceptions and feelings of the individual migrant and thereby extends a lot of existing research and theories.

What was the most important lesson you learned in the process of your research and writing your dissertation?

M.FN. By writing a thesis by publications, I learned to work independently and to cooperate with other researchers. Furthermore, I learned about the difficulties involved in scientific working and was able to grow from it.

How did you prepare for your disputation?

M.FN. I read the thesis reviews carefully and talked to my supervisor about what the foucs should be because you will never be able to present and discuss all issues of three years’ work within one hour of disputation

What is the next step in your career? Do you want to pursue an academic career?

M.FN. I just started a new job as research assistant at the University of Hamburg in the course of a very interesting DFG-project by Prof. Petra Böhnke "Armut über Generationen" . This job allows me to gather further valuable research experiences to step on a future career path within academia. ◼

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