 My name is Manuel Mayerhofer, I'm actually a graduate from the master's program and I'm lecturing with Park Coalition for some two and a half years and I graduated from the master's program in international management. Now I'm originally from Germany and back in Germany I did a dual study program where you do your bachelor's and you're employed in a company and essentially in a block of three months you're studying and then you're for three months again in the company and you get to see all sorts of departments and back then it was right after high school I wasn't really sure in what direction I would like to go so it was great to go in a more general direction of business administration and whilst working in the company I started I think it was in the second year back then I started working in the export department was a manufacturer for varnishes and paint and I started to really enjoy it and when the graduation was approaching I was looking for new options but also while I was studying abroad I had noticed that I was looking for something say a bit different perhaps something where I could develop my skills a bit more because I had the experience of being at a state university that's all great and it's fun but I felt that there was more learning than I could draw somewhere else so I found Park College I remember having my interview in that case with Stefano in person and who's the head of the school and really the first couple of weeks at Park College were very much eye-opening it was tough in the beginning obviously moving from another country starting to study in English and so forth but nevertheless I think the support from the lectures was just absolutely amazing and they helped us to cope with all of this kind of new stress that we were under and they helped us really grow and not only develop our skills but to hone these skills further and in my case I upon graduation took a direction towards academia I will probably submit my PhD dissertation next year if all things go well and by graduating from the master's program I was really equipped with everything I needed to ensure such a smooth transition so I remember my modules with Dave back then on research methods and starting to kind of get an idea of academic writing how to write papers how to analyze papers and so forth and I've really started to like it and now I mean I'm doing my doctoral studies and I could not be happier really now you might also say well but Manuel is working for them and so he just says that I wouldn't be working for Park College if I was not really if I wasn't really happy about the approach that they are taking so I'm very glad and I'm very honored actually to be part of this amazing university while we were preparing for this talk I had a look at my master's dissertation again which back then I mean I was absolutely amazed by it and so forth I think it's still a good piece of work but nevertheless seeing how far I've come and how far I've progressed I can really just emphasize that you can expect a steep learning curve