Comment: Look beyond the end of your own nose

Dear new students,

“Gucken Sie über den Tellerrand hinaus” – look further than the rim of the plate. Or look further than the end of your nose, as we might say in English. Hundreds of students heard this encouragement at the University’s old Ceremonial Hall on one April day in 2015. It came from a woman who herself has looked further; a physicist from Leipzig University in the former GDR, who became Chancellor of the united Germany – Angela Merkel.

Merkel’s words could serve as the motto for an education at the University. Whether you are studying physics, philosophy or pharmacy:

Spend some time studying abroad or at the exotic neighbouring faculty. Learn a language – not just English. Show up at one of the University’s Innovation Hubs and grow your own entrepreneurial spirit. Meet new and former students in the University’s Alumni Association, lunch with researchers or attend debates in the University’s Ceremonial Hall with statesmen – and women like Merkel.

“Studying at a university is hard – and exciting – work that requires talent, energy and curiosity. And there are no limits to how you can use these abilities when the diploma is secured.”

General education (in Danish: dannelse) is also an important part of a university education. As the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted wrote in 1824: “It is not so much the amount of knowledge that must be the goal of higher education, but the hallmark of reason that is put on these skills” (translated from Danish). General education is not a narrow-minded defence for rote-learning the list of Danish Kings and Queens, but the full range of arguments for and against the historical significance of kings and queens. In this sense, the university even holds something revolutionary – or rather, in modern Danish: innovation potential. Like when Tycho Brahe with one stroke changed our view of the universe, or when Niels Bohr created the atomic model.

Studying at a university is hard – and exciting – work that requires talent, energy and curiosity. And there are no limits to how you can use these abilities when the diploma is secured. Obviously, a job. But the world does not exactly lack problems that UCPH graduates can help solve. Just look at the new UN Sustainable Development Goals: reducing poverty, universal primary education, equal rights for men and women, reducing maternal and child mortality, environmental sustainability and global cooperation. There is plenty of work to be done.

We are happy and proud that you have chosen the University of Copenhagen. And we hope that the University will whet your appetite for a whole world of knowledge – if you look further and beyond the rim of your plate.

Welcome to the University of Copenhagen!

universitypost@adm.ku.dk

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