I am ESR #12 and one of three candidates at Dublin City University. I finally arrived in Dublin and I was quite excited beforehand. It was the beginning of a new month and also the beginning of a new chapter in my life.
I arrived on Saturday and thus had the whole Sunday to explore Dublin, make me familiar with my surroundings and prepare for Monday. It is the first time I visited Ireland and everybody is so friendly, helpful and courteous. Contrary to expectations, the weather was fine though 😉
On Monday morning, my first official day of work, I was received with a warm welcome by Oksana, one of the project managers of PERFORM. Oksana guided me through every administrative process I needed to go through first, from the beginning of acquiring a staff ID card to showing me relevant online portals and major contact points around DCU. But she also showed me the library, different cafeterias and introduced me to colleagues at the department. We had lunch later and a small campus-tour, It was great and exciting, thank you Oksana!
I also met Markus, Zohreh and other current PhD students later at the department who are all lovely people and so helpful. After work I was invited to meet together and have some drinks nearby in a bar. I really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere with the team, talking about my first impressions, get to know each other and learn some insights about life at DCU, it was so great and enjoyable!
I hope the other ESRs had an exciting first day as well – looking forward to meeting you all in our first training event in Dublin next month! And I will soon meet Artem and Rehan who will arrive in the following days and join me at DCU – looking forward to seeing you guys!
Gültekin
Gültekin, you will rock it! 😉