Collaborating is always appealing because it expands your horizon. It¡¯s always new skills, new institutions,new people. I enjoy being among my colleagues who travel and work abroad, not only in their own country. But it¡®s also a challenge. For example, it¡¯s much easier to teach in your native language.Englisch is not my native language, and I don¡¯t know German either.

My current research project is community care and elderly care. That¡¯s why a lot of issues being taught here and covered by research are of interest to me. I¡®m looking forward to expanding these contacts.I think it would be good to collaborate in the future, especially on issues of community care of the elderly.

I co-teach the class and it¡®s okay because I have known Dr. Marit Cremer for several years. She is a great help, especially in improving my skills in online teaching. But she is also very inventive in the interactiveaspects of teaching. I¡¯m more used to the old-fashioned lecture style, and she knows better how to com-bine different teaching styles in one class. I had to adapt to the style of modern teaching which includes multimedia, interaction, feedback, etc.

I also had to adapt to the BA level, which was a challenge for me because I¡®m trained for a very different type of teaching. But it was the most important, because these are very young people. They don¡¯t know what they¡®re going to do for profession. So the task is to expand their cultural horizon and help them reinvent themselves in the future.

The worst thing is hybrid teaching. Because I¡®m very bad at using devices and don¡¯t always have the helpI need. I have to do several things at once, not only teach and communicate in a foreign language. It takes other skills. For me, it¡¯s not good because my good sides have always been face-to-face commutation. I could personalize the questions in an engaging way and share stories. It is easier to feel the room when you have somebody in the room.

I have felt very safe here and overcame all of the difficulties with bureaucracy with the help of people. I was impressed by several monuments. I like these kinds of monuments for strange things that I don¡¯t find in my country and that try to memorize and recognize many important things in our lives. I also enjoyed the parks. Especially in November, because I come from the north of Russia, where autumn is over in October. I know Berlin and big cities, I come from Sankt Petersburg, but for me Potsdam is really ?sans souci?.

My message to students: Don¡¯t me afraid of covid, enjoy distant learning and travel as much as possible!