Podcast "We are TUM" – Transcript, first episode

"It seems to me almost as if we're continuing to completely ignore the risks which after all result from other viral infections that we never used to talk about in the past. But now we're completely focusing on everything that has to do with this virus."

[Matthias Kirsch:] The woman you just heard is Ulrike Protzer. She's a professor of virology and holds the Chair for Virology at the Technical University of Munich. And as you can imagine, the days of the Coronavirus have been very exciting for Ulrike Protzer as a virologist. Suddenly her research was at the center of attention, as was the case for many of her colleagues around the world. Almost overnight, everyone was interested in virology. In just a few moments we'll speak with her about what her work was like during Corona and what she did research on.

Welcome to "We are TUM", the podcast by and for TU Munich. My name is Matthias Kirsch and I'll be accompanying you through the podcast. Over the past decades, TU Munich has grown to become one of Germany's largest universities, with approximately 45,000 students and more than 11,000 employees. On this kind of scale it's easy to lose track of everything that's actually being researched at the university! That's why every six weeks we'll be presenting the people who work and study at TUM right here. We'll discuss research results and outstanding degree thesis projects. But we'll also be talking about the little things and the important people in the background who keep TUM going from day to day.

TUM President Thomas Hofmann will now tell you what's in store for you in this first episode of "We are TUM".

[Thomas Hofmann:] Welcome, dear listener: Just like the rest of the world, TUM has also struggled with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic over the course of the last year. The greatest disruption was naturally the fact that the majority of students no longer attended lectures in classrooms and auditoriums, but rather had to follow them from home. Work has also been fundamentally altered for our staff members as well. It is thus no surprise that the first episode of our "We are TUM" podcast will address the topic of Corona. Today in our 'Talks at the Top' segment, which will be featured in every podcast episode, we'll speak with virologist Ulrike Protzer about her research in the midst of the crisis, research which has played a truly decisive role in combatting the pandemic. We'll also hear from two TUM students, Dany Serrano and Sebastian Faul, who talk about their lives in the times of the pandemic, the challenges of working at home and what it's like to attend a lecture from your livingroom. Then, to conclude our topical segment on 'Corona', Gunther Friedl will give us his estimation of the consequences of the pandemic for the German economy. Gunther Friedl is TUM Professor for Business Administration and dean of the TUM School of Management. Then we'll hear a voice from mid-level faculty, Roland Wüchner, in the section on 'Hidden Champions'. In each episode this section will present to you members of our university family who don't vie for attention, working quietly, but whose outstanding dedication to the success and proper operation of the university are simply indispensable. We'll conclude this episode of "We are TUM" with Christoph Müller-Höcker, the Global Head of Organizational Change at Allianz Technology. In our 'Outside Perspectives' feature he'll share five tips for concentrated working and how the concept of mindfulness that he has introduced at Allianz can also have a positive impact on our everyday working world. I hope you enjoy listening to this first episode of "We are Tum".

[Kirsch:] So let's get started with this first episode of the TUM podcast. Since the beginning of the pandemic Ulrike Protzer has been among the most important Corona explainers in Germany. My colleague Marcel Laskus takes a look to the future with the director of the Institute of Virology and asks her whether we'll ever get our old lives back and how we can prevent the next pandemic.

[Marcel Laskus:] Professor Ulrike Protzer was already an important expert in the field of virology before the pandemic. But as a result of Corona, suddenly everyone imaginable was interested in her work, experts and laymen alike. She has been giving almost daily interviews for over a year and a half now, while continuing to work on the viruses at the focus of her research. Today I'd like to join her for a look at the future.

[Laskus:] Hello Professor Protzer, welcome.

[Ulrike Protzer:] Hello, thank you.

[Laskus:] As I look around your office, I don't see a crystal ball - but nevertheless, tell us, will this autumn and winter be as disheartening as the last autumn and winter?

[Protzer:] We virologists have long wished for a crystal ball that we can just consult, but that's not in our job description: I think we'd need some extra training for that [laughs]. But you still don't have to be a fortune teller to know we'll be seeing rising numbers in the fall. We can already see this happening in other countries; the more contagious Delta variant has also arrived here in Germany. That will also lead to a higher number of infections. Luckily, at least according to the data available now, the variant appears not to cause more serious symptoms of the disease, but it can evade the body's immune response more easily and is simply much, much more contagious. A person who has been infected with the Delta variant releases more than 1,000 times more of the virus. This means it's just lots easier for me to become infected, and we're going to see this blossom in the fall. And then we're going to need really good parameters for controlling the overall course of events. This is a new situation, something we haven't had yet. But we can learn from countries like America, England and Israel, who are simply further along than we are in terms of the number of infections and the resulting burden on the hospitals.

[Laskus:] And now a question – even without a crystal ball – Will we ever be able to return to our old lives?

[Protzer:] I think so. We simply have to learn to live with a virus like this and we also have to accept a certain risk. It seems to me almost as if we're continuing to completely ignore the risks which after all result from other viral infections that we never used to talk about in the past. But now we're completely focusing on everything that has to do with this virus. And I think we just have to get that back to a more normal rationale and basis and then live with the whole thing the way we live with outbreaks of the flu or with the fact that the hepatitis and HIV viruses exist. Or that there are antibiotic-resistant germs. This isn't really all that unique.

[Laskus:] We've had a year and a half to learn how to handle a pandemic like this, and how not to handle it. What should we do the next time, when some new virus shows up, what can we do better as a society?

[Protzer:] I think we should try to approach the whole thing more rationally. There's such a wide spectrum, from people who react with total panic to those who simply ignore the whole thing or even claim the pandemic doesn't exist. And I think finding a healthy compromise that makes it possible to handle newly occurring infections in a normal setting is extremely important. In addition, it's of course also important to have a certain alarm system in place so that we can react as quickly as possible and prevent local outbreaks from spreading throughout the entire world. And in my opinion the important point is to understand why these newly appearing infectious agents make us ill. We still don't have a good understanding of why viruses make us ill in the first place. They wouldn't bother us if all they did was float around and nobody got sick. But this enormous riddle of why we get ill and who will get ill… I think understanding that better has to be our next big task and our objective during the period before another infectious agent arrives at some point. And unfortunately I'm afraid that's indeed going to happen.

[Laskus:] And how will we have to live in order to make it at least a little less probable that dangerous viruses appear?

[Protzer:] If we wanted to make the appearance of viruses less probable, we'd have to eliminate life. That means: It wouldn't work. If we want to make the transition of viruses to humans and the spread of the infection less probable, then we as humanity should try to intrude less on the territories of animals and wildlife, and also not bring so many exotic animals into close contact with humans, so that the transition of viruses to humans is simply less probable. And if we want to prevent the spread of the virus from human to human, then first we have to understand how we can reduce the airborne spread of the virus, via aerosols. And if we want to stop the worldwide spread, then we'd have to shut down all travel, all tourism and all international commodity flows. But especially the last point is never going to happen. This means we can really only concentrate on influencing the first two parameters.

[Laskus:] Then let's hope it will take a while before we have the next pandemic. I hope we get over this one first.
Thank you for speaking with us, Ms. Protzer.

[Protzer:] It's been a pleasure.

[Kirsch:] University studies in times of Corona: For millions of young people everywhere in the world this has meant sitting in the shared apartment instead of the lecture hall, taking exams on the computer instead of in the main auditorium. And the approximately 45,000 TUM students were no exception. How did they feel? What did they experience over the past year? My colleague Clarissa Ruge speaks with two TUM students about the exceptional year that lies behind us.

[Clarissa Ruge:] University studies in times of Corona: I think that's a totally important topic, and I'm glad to be speaking with Dany Serrano today. Dany, you're a second-semester physics student here at TUM. And welcome and hello to Sebastian Faul. You're studying information technologies in your eighth semester. Both of you are working on the Bachelor's degree. Welcome to our studio!

[Dany Serrano:] Hello.

[Sebastian Faul:] Hi.

[Ruge:] What three words do you think describe the time you spent studying in the last eighteen months? Dany, why don't you start us off…

[Serrano:] New, surprising and Corona.

[Ruge:] Sebastian?

[Faul:] I'd say: stressful, chaotic and a little lonely.

[Ruge:] I can believe it. Okay, so let's take a quick look. Let's start with you, Dany. You said "new" …?

[Serrano:] New, surprising and Corona.

[Ruge:] Okay, new, surprising. That still sounds a bit positive, doesn't it? What would you say?

[Serrano:] Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about surprises, there are always good surprises and bad surprises. And for me, I'm from Mexico, the whole thing was entirely new to me, moving in here in Munich. That made it all pretty surprising; also the fact that I wasn't allowed to actually go to campus.

[Ruge:] And did you have the feeling, OK, a surprise, but I've got this covered? Or did you somehow feel like oh, no, this is way too difficult? What's it like when you're studying in the second semester already and everything is different from what you thought it would be?

[Serrano:] I'd say it's interesting because you see all your classmates, the ones in the higher semesters in their majors and they say, sure, in my first semester here I did this and that… and it's too bad because I can't do any of it. And I think, we, the first and second semester students who began during Corona, now we've experienced another beginning to our studies, which the others didn't have. And that means for us studying with Corona is normal, while it's not for the others.

[Ruge:] Yes, I think so too. Sebastian, remind us quickly of the three words that came to your mind…

[Faul:] My three words were: chaotic, stressful and lonely.

[Ruge:] Talk about what you mean.

[Faul:] Sure, I know what it was like to study before Corona, when there was always a party going on, you were always meeting somebody, going to lectures together, grabbing a beer and sitting down in the lecture hall. It's anything but great to study right now, if you know what studying was like before. As I just said, the interaction with the other students is missing. And it's not that easy just to get to know somebody, since nobody turns on their cameras in the online courses, everyone's just typing around in the chat, nobody talks. I don't know, I think that's a little sad.

[Ruge:] So you've given us a very good description of the social side of things. But is there a learning curve or something on the academic side? What's studying like in times of Corona?

[Faul:] Well, it is different. On the one hand you have more time to hit the books, since you don't have to sit in the subway and commute to school. There are no distractions from parties or friends, things like that. On the other hand it's exactly this kind of distraction that's a good compensation, a good way to balance out the stress of being a student, the mental burden. And when that component is gone, then there's a certain loss of motivation to really get into studying again and to get up early in the morning again, sit down at the desk and then to spend the entire day there at the desk without seeing anything else.

[Ruge:] I see what you mean. Now there are only two of you here, but you can hopefully speak for a lot of others as well. My next question goes to you Sebastian, and then we can get back to you, Dany. Your classmates. Do you have the feeling they are experiencing things exactly the same way you are, or are there a lot of people who are in much worse shape, who are really having problems right now? Can you describe that?

[Faul:] I'm sure there are a lot of people who are worse off than I am. I mean, I have a relatively diverse group of classmates. I have various different circles of friends where there is really always somebody you can do something together with, an evening playing games online, something like that. And there's also the department student group : I mean, the student group for math, physics and information technologies is really active as well, as far as online gaming nights and things like that. But I think somebody who hasn't gotten to know that yet and hasn't yet made some contacts and for example is brand new at the university and then just has to sit around at home, who doesn't hear much from their classmates and doesn't get to know many people, they're probably going to have a pretty tough time.

[Ruge:] Thanks.
Dany, what do you think? You're more or less in the position Sebastian just described, at the beginning of the semester. Have you made any contacts? How are you doing that right now?

[Serrano:] Well, at the beginning of the semester I got into a WhatsApp group with my classmates. That meant I met a lot of people, but the contact is pretty distant, since everything is over Zoom. Sure, we meet up and all that, but you never really feel like you're getting to know the people because all you ever see is the camera and then you sort of lose the contact you're really looking for when you start your studies. That's when everyone is feeling just as lost as I am.

[Ruge:] How are you motivating yourself for your studies now?

[Serrano:] That's a pretty good question. In the beginning I thought it was totally stressful, because I had the feeling that I was alone, the only one who was having trouble with the homework, things like that. But in the meantime I know people either through Discord, WhatsApp or in the lecture sections , so I'm not so alone anymore.

[Ruge:] I'd like to know how you feel about the online lectures and work groups and the way course content is conveyed; and how is contact with the professors and instructors? Dany?

[Serrano:] I think contact with the instructors is pretty good, at least in the physics student group, because you find questions relating to a lecture or a script that doesn't seem quite right, that sort of thing. You can always ask the instructor and they either answer the question or correct the mistake. I think that's good.

[Ruge:] Sebastian?

[Faul:] Yeah, things are a little more complicated for us. I'm in information technologies, we have way too many students. More than anything it's especially difficult for the tutors and professors to answer individual questions. We usually solve that with a fairly large forum where students or tutors can then provide answers. Actually, that works out pretty well. To be honest, individual support from a professor kind of gets lost along the way.

[Ruge:] Well, we're just about done. Of course things are difficult and a big change for TUM and its personnel, but if you could give some advice right now, Sebastian, what would you say to your student group or your instructors or professors? What could still be improved, realistically?

[Faul:] Hmm, that's hard to say. Just try to make more contact with the students, take a little time to listen to the little gripes some students have. And maybe not always to plan in short-term steps, but also a little more long-term. Not always just for the next semester or for the next two semesters. Of course that's going to be difficult with Corona. But in the future, when Corona is over again, just to plan a little more long-term, maybe even three years in advance.

[Ruge:] Dany, how about you? What would be your tip on something that could be improved?

[Serrano:] Well, one thing that can be improved is maybe how students receive the lectures. Because for some of us it's pretty hard to sit down all day long and watch lectures when they're not being held live. Or at least that's a problem for me.

[Ruge:] And you've been doing this a bit longer. Do you have classmates who are really having problems? Where their parents don't simply say, okay, we'll give you more support than usual, you can't go out and get a job.

[Faul:] I actually know somebody who gets money from his uncle because his parents don't have enough to support him. BAföG, state student support, isn't enough by itself. Yeah, he's having a tough time.

[Ruge:] An important factor, for sure. A final question: What are you looking forward to most, if Corona is really over now, if we achieve herd immunity? What will be the first thing you do? Dany?

[Serrano:] I'll get into the student life I've had to miss until now.

[Ruge:] Sebastian?

[Faul:] I'll meet up with all kinds of friends, throw a big party or something like that, I don't know. Just be together again. And maintain my social network.

[Ruge:] Sounds great. Thanks for giving us a quick insight into your worlds. Super! Bye!

[Faul:] Glad to…

[Serrano:] My pleasure.

[Kirsch:] When politics reacted to the Corona crisis last year, German Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said, quote: "We want to get through this crisis with a bang." The aid package that was passed at the time amounted to about 130 billion euros. But what about the "bang" we were promised? My colleague Clarissa Ruge speaks about this question with one of our economic experts, Gunther Friedl, the Dean of the TU School of Management.

[Ruge:] I'm looking forward to a conversation with Prof. Gunther Friedl, holder of the TUM Professorship of Business Administration and Controlling. Now, with a few months perspective, what economic assessment on the Corona pandemic can you cite where you have to say: I was wrong?

[Gunther Friedl:] Back then, when the first reports of Corona came in, and then as the first apprehensions that the economy could really suffer, I was not as pessimistic as the stock markets were at the time. The stock markets crashed, within a very short time they lost 40 percent. I always said that was an exaggerated reaction. And then during the subsequent recovery I really couldn't believe that the recovery would take us to the dimensions it's taken us to now. Right now we're seeing what's called a "party in the markets", where stock market valuations have been triggered at unimaginable heights. I never would have imagined that. At the time I actually asked myself how such a stock market valuation was possible, the highest stock market valuation we've ever had, one which implies that the economy has never been doing better, that the prospects for the future never looked so good, the way they're now being reflected by the stock market valuations. Even today it's still difficult to explain how that can be justified. One possible explanation is that the Central Banks went into the markets with massive liquidity injections, which they by the way also did back in the big financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, and that this money, enormous amounts of money, has actually led to the unbelievably high market valuations we're seeing today.

[Ruge:] So we can relax and Corona won't have an impact here? Or how can I understand that from a layman's point of view?

[Friedl:] I think we're actually seeing that Corona didn't wreak as much havoc with the economy as we originally thought it would. Of course we have many industry and business sectors which are suffering tremendously under Corona. The in-person entertainment branch, air travel, restaurants, the hotel sector... They have indeed in part been ruined. But at the same time there are other economic sectors which are profiting from Corona in a manner we hardly ever imagined. Just think about the entire electronic component branch. Infineon, a Munich-based semiconductor manufacturer, is profiting from the Corona crisis to the extent that they're having great difficulties keeping up with demand, producing enough chips to keep up with industry requirements. So we can see that Corona ultimately caused a split in the economy: A division between big losers and unbelievable winners. And on the whole, if we take the average, so to speak, then we see that the economy is actually no worse off than before.

[Ruge:] Is the Corona crisis now changing the venture capital market?

[Friedl:] The venture capital market is a market in which we here in Germany were really lagging behind for many years, behind the USA. And in my opinion this has to do with the fact that we in Germany were simply too cautious. We weren't willing enough to take risks, even make bets. I'm not sure whether Corona is really having a major impact on the changing venture capital market. However, we can already see that Europe has caught up, and we can be happy about that. But in my opinion Corona only had a very minor effect on the venture capital market.

[Ruge:] And what do you see as the economic science lessons learned from the Corona crisis?

[Friedl:] The Corona crisis shows us that we have to be willing to change, that we have to consider very carefully what business areas we want to be active in, which developments will ultimately result in success. And the Corona crisis has once more poured salt in the wounds of the companies which may have been suffering from an insufficient degree of innovation. The Corona crisis has rewarded those companies that are able to innovate, that are comfortable with change. The Corona crisis has also punished those companies which have simply may not have been adaptable enough.

[Ruge:] And what would you say you've learned from the crisis, which will hopefully soon be over, at least as far as the incidence rates are concerned? What has been a positive surprise?

[Friedl:] In many sectors we're seeing that things we never thought would ever be possible before simply are possible. And the really enormous sector here is guaranteed to be digitalization. Before the crisis it was hardly possible to meet for a conference with six or ten other people by simply setting up a video conference. We could have made phone calls, maybe one conference call with four or five other people, but we weren't really willing to do that, we had to get on the train, get in the car, board a plane and meet people in larger groups in person. And here we've simply become more open to one another as humans. We've learned to appreciate this blessing of digitalization. And I think things will stay that way.

[Ruge:] And now one last question, closely related to TUM. What are you looking forward to most about your work here at TUM in the next two or three years?

[Friedl:] Actually, I'm most looking forward to the idea that we'll hopefully be able to bring our students back to the TUM campuses in the fall. It's already been a year since we really saw them, except in video conferences. And we can understand what that means and how much we actually miss having our students here on campus. Having our students back, being able to discuss things with them in person – that will be great.

[Ruge:] Thank you for speaking with us.

[Kirsch:] It's a well-known fact that TU Munich stands for cutting-edge research. After all, it's exactly this research which attracts students from all over the world to come to Munich. But this is all made possible by people behind the scenes that we may never see at all. This section of our podcast is devoted to these "Hidden Champions". We'll start with Roland Wüchner, Adjunct Teaching Professor for Structural Analysis at TUM and thus a voice from mid-level faculty. What challenges are facing mid-level faculty at the university? We'll turn to this question now. The conversation is with Roland Wüchner and Clarissa Ruge.

[Ruge:] I'm looking forward to speaking with Dr. Roland Wüchner, Adjunct Teaching Professor at the TUM Chair of Structural Analysis and deputy head of the Chair, and as such a voice from our mid-level faculty. Hello, Dr. Wüchner, we're glad you could join us today!

[Roland Wüchner:] Hello Dr. Ruge, thank you for inviting me to speak with you.

[Ruge:] We're currently in the midst of the largest restructuring project in the area of engineering, moving towards the School of Engineering and Design. What challenges does this present to mid-level faculty?

[Wüchner:] I certainly see an opportunity in the restructuring for mid-level faculty to support this cross-linking among the engineering subjects as a status group.

[Ruge:] It's very difficult to generalize a concept like mid-level faculty. Could give us your brief description of what drives a typical mid-level faculty member?

[Wüchner:] Well, the typical mid-level faculty member is curious about science, likes to teach and enjoys interacting with all the other people we encounter here at TUM: Students, the other researchers, as well as external collaboration partners, other universities and companies. Mid-level faculty members are also driven by a strong intrinsic motivation that also gives them a high sense of responsibility for long-term research projects. And of course they work to support and ensure the success of research performed by the chairs and departments. I personally see the greatest, most interesting aspect of mid-level faculty in that we can contribute this restlessness, this resourcefulness to the overall system when it comes to exploring new topic areas.

[Ruge:] And what kind of action would be important to you personally? Something where you would say: if that happens, mid-level faculty would be much better off?

[Wüchner:] Give mid-level faculty freedom to act, freedom to design. Mid-level faculty is resourceful. Mid-level faculty has ideas. There is an enormous creative potential here, and leveraging that potential is also a great benefit for TUM. I could well imagine that the essential measure would be simply to integrate mid-level faculty in an appreciative manner and to thus to leverage its experience.

[Ruge:] How could the basic parameters in everyday work activities be improved?

[Wüchner:] One very specific thing is that room should be made for the self-motivation of mid-level faculty, for example to motivate them to submit their own research proposals, even to acquire third-party funding. This would create more freedom of action, including in terms of new teaching concepts. All these things of course have to be organized individually within the respective chairs and departments. The mid-level faculty member is typically allocated to an organizational unit, a chair. And that's where everything which supports the synergy between leading professors and the mid-level faculty members is just perfect. This also makes it possible to leverage potentials in mid-level faculty.

[Ruge:] That would bring us to the topic of your personal biography or your personal career path. You'll be leaving for a professorial appointment in Braunschweig in the fall. Would you like to comment on that, or can you comment on that?

[Wüchner:] Yes, that's an interesting aspect, particularly with regard to the question of where mid-level faculty is headed. What drives mid-level faculty? I have discovered that I've reached a limit at TUM which already makes it hard for me to achieve certain other things. For example, I can't apply for a position here at TUM, although I think TUM is a tremendously positive working environment. It's a great environment in general. We have incredibly great opportunities to make a difference here. Super equipment. But the main issue was 'in-house appointment'. Since I don't see any other possibility here, I made the difficult decision to apply externally, which ultimately succeeded.

[Ruge:] Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

[Wüchner:] Thank you.

[Kirsch:] Now we've heard from many TUM employees, from TUM students, people from the TUM universe. But in this podcast we also want to hear from people who give us an outside perspective, who have a look at this universe from a different angle. We shouldn't get stuck looking only at ourselves, we also have to ask for the opinions of others. That's why we've created the section 'Outside Perspectives' . We'll begin with Christoph Müller-Höcker. As the Global Head of Organizational Change at Allianz Technology, Müller-Höcker has introduced a highly personal passion to his company, the concept of Mindfulness. In the meantime many thousands of colleagues at Allianz participate in meditation seminars with him, sharing techniques for handling everyday stress better. I'm very pleased to greet Christoph Müller-Höcker here in our podcast. Hello Mr. Müller-Höcker.

[Christoph Müller-Höcker:] Hello Mr. Kirsch, hello.

[Kirsch:] Welcome! A question to begin with: Why are we speaking with Christoph Müller-Höcker? Christoph Müller-Höcker implemented the concept of mindfulness in his role as Head of Organizational Change at Allianz Technology. Before we get to your specific five tips, maybe you could tell us a bit about Mindfulness and your role at Allianz. How did it come about that you introduced the topic of Mindfulness at Allianz and what was the background?

[Müller-Höcker:] Thank you for asking, Mr. Kirsch. It's already been a couple of years now, but I myself had the feeling that the prevailing dynamic not only in our society, but also at our company, was that there was always more and more pressure on the individual, that there is a lot of movement, we were bombarded with different impressions and that the individual faced a great challenge in dealing with all of this. And I came across Mindfulness, I took a course and I was fascinated by the effect and the natural accessibility for us as human beings, since the whole idea is based on neuroscience, where we can reach the center by means of simple exercises. And I was so fascinated and moved that I decided I wanted to introduce Mindfulness at our company. It was tremendously well received and after that, well one thing just led to another.

[Kirsch:] In the meantime at Allianz there are quite a few regular participants at the seminars and courses on Mindfulness and Meditation. Since there are so many people at Allianz who are already immersed in this topic, we wanted to ask you for five tips for our listeners. So I'll turn things over to you: What are your five tips for us today on aware, concentrated working?

[Müller-Höcker:] Well, I did some thinking about what we could do here without too much advance knowledge, just shooting from the hip. I'd say I'd call the first tip: 'The magical break'. Simply reflect, take a few deep breathes, concentrating on breathing in and out. The result is a moment of calm. Then ask yourself, how am I really doing right now? And what would help me? And I can start doing this anywhere, anytime. That second tip would be: Our brains are happy when there's something new. That means when we're at work and just sitting there, we should simply change our position, stand up for a second, take a step, sit back down. That's already enough change of pace for the brain to say: Hey, now I can be a little more attentive or secrete some hormones in that direction and now I can concentrate better. The topic of performance and dealing with yourself is of course also very relevant to university studies. The next tip is to take on a perspective that when things are going too well, that's also normal. Things don't always go perfectly and, according to the perspective of resilience, it's easier to say to yourself: I'll take a look at the things which are going well. An entirely conscious change of perspective rather than only looking at the things that aren't working ideally.

And that brings me to the fourth tip: A mindset referred to as 'self-kindness', saying to yourself, I'm not going to treat myself always from the point of view of the inner critic, instead I'll deal with myself the way I would deal with a friend. And this openness and friendliness will make it possible for me to grow better. Studies have shown this to be true when I always encounter myself with a lot of self-confidence. And then finally from this position to consider – this is by the way the last exercise tip, a really simple one, one you can do every day when going to bed, before you go to sleep: Simply think, ask yourself, what went well today? What made me happy? This can be something little, meeting someone, an experience. This should all be perceived in a sense of gratitude, to be internalized physically, resulting in a positive point of view about life and about yourself.

[Kirsch:] So, there are five tips and a few actual exercises. There were also thought-exercises such as changing perspectives. Mr. Müller-Höcker, thank you for sharing these tips with us today.

[Müller-Höcker:] You're welcome, my pleasure.

[Kirsch:] And that's it for the first episode of "We are TUM". Here in our podcast we'll be showcasing TUM's cutting-edge research, student life and we'll be speaking with all those who make TU Munich the unique place that it is. This has been "We are TUM". This episode was produced by Marcel Laskus, Clarissa Ruge, Wenzel Weber and me, Matthias Kirsch. Sound design and post-production by Marco Meister. That's all until the next episode. Make sure to join us and discover the big and little secrets of the Technical University of Munich.

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