We asked our Student Fellows to write us a short blog about their background and what they are doing as part of their BILT role. The following blog is from Johannes Schmiedecker, who has been a BILT Student Fellow since December 2018.
Hi!
My name is Johannes Schmiedecker, I come from the beautiful country of Austria, where I studied law at the University of Vienna. In finished my degree in June 2018 and in September, I moved to Bristol and now study the LLM programme European Legal Studies here at the University of Bristol.
Studying European law in the UK in those times might not be everyone’s first choice but I find it interesting to see the Brexit debate from the British point of view. And, who knows, what will happen it the next months. Apart from studying I enjoy exploring the city, travel around in England and use the sports facilities at the University as well as engaging in different societies. The openness and friendliness of the Bristolians really surprised me in a positive way and I enjoy living here. I want to use this (probably) last year as a student for improving my language skills, get to know different people from around the world and learn as much as possible before I will start working.
I got appointed as a Student Fellow for Project 4, which is researching BILTs new theme. In this position, I will, among other things, do research about how we can improve learning and teaching by analysing the big amount of information that is collected. I find this a great opportunity to explore new digital technologies and how they might be useful in the academic environment. One thing that I would like to focus on is Big Data. The huge sums of information that are collected nowadays could be used effectively to improve the teaching and learning atmosphere. Doing research in this field is new to me, as I come from a legal background, but I am very excited in exploring new areas.