Learning space number one – GW2 cafeteria

To mark the university’s 50th anniversary, we launched an “alumni wall" in early summer at www.meineunibremen.de where alumni can post their profiles and share what connects them to the University of Bremen. Particularly worth reading: the many anecdotes that give a good idea of what the University of Bremen is all about. 

For many, the close togetherness of everyday university life is a formative experience. A female researcher writes about working on her doctorate on weekends in the MZH, alone on level 6. But not entirely alone, because there was also a porter, a jovial older gentleman: "Sometimes he came by worried, asking if I wasn't afraid in the big empty building, and said that I had better lock myself in my office, all alone as a young woman...Now and then he even brought me biscuits. At the time, that care was very touching." A foreign student noted: "My fellow students congratulated me on the birth of my daughter and gave me a little gift. I was very touched by this gesture." And one about something a bit more traditional: "I remember watching the World Cup with the professors in the ELSA room."

A scientist remembers tense moments during a visit by the Excellence Initiative Board, which was interrupted by student protests: "The stress increased for all of us – but then the rector grinned and told the stunned panel as well as the equally astonished protesters that he remembered his days of protest very well, that he thought students' demands for action were good, but that he expected a concrete message or demand and not just symbolism. The panel found his relaxed attitude remarkable, and so did I."

The clear favourite gathering spot: the GW2 cafeteria. "I had a very good time studying at the University of Bremen. Apart from studying, sitting around in the GWII cafe.” "What influenced me the most: Prof. Dr. Zimmermann, Prof. Dr. Freiling and the coffee machine at GW2.” "I liked the lectures at GW2 the most. In the cafete (cafeteria) there, there were always pretzel sticks and this creamy Bremerland cocoa in little bags. An unbeatable combination."