Nico Schmidt

"All life is problem solving"

As with many things in my life, I came across the PELP program relatively by chance. I had previously completed a dual Bachelor's degree in business administration in Germany and felt that I was specializing too quickly in business processes, which seemed interchangeable and one-sided to me. So I came to the PELP Master's program as a career changer with no previous knowledge, which appealed to me because of the variety of courses and subject areas on offer.

During my PELP studies, I learned above all to be confronted with new problems and unfamiliar discussions and to find the best way to deal with them and develop my own positions from them. A few years after graduating, these tools still help me in my everyday life. I now work in project management at the European Central Bank on the digital euro, a politically highly charged and forward-looking topic. Here, we are confronted with new challenges from politics, technology or the public almost every day, and my PELP studies still help me a lot in my approach. I stumbled across Karl Popper's book "All Life is Problem Solving" during my studies and still find the logic and reasoning described in it inspiring for my own development. In the world of work, I encounter philosophy more often than I thought - for example, the European Commission bases the key virtues described in PM² - the EU's official project management methodology - entirely on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics!

I can recommend the PELP degree to anyone who wants to further their education in a future-oriented way using the example of practically relevant developments and topics such as climate change or distributive justice. PELP degree gives you a broad interdisciplinary basis and allows you to set your own priorities.