MCI semester during COVID-Lockdown

Ondřej Pešek reports about a unique spring semester 2020

Ondřej Pešek from the Czech Republic is studying industrial engineering at MCI and shares his experiences on his spring semester 2020 - which was governed by the COVID-19 lockdown:

"It was Monday, March the 9^th when I was leaving Innsbruck to visit my parents in Prague and I expected to be back in Innsbruck on Thursday evening. Just a normal situation for me during my studies at MCI. From time to time, I switch places for a few days because the distances are not that far. But this time it was different. It was for a longer time than I could have ever imagined.

Corona hit us all unprepared but retrospectively, I can tell that not all of us were that much unprepared as we think. Thanks to my friends in the Czech Republic, I have the possibility to compare the situations and believe it or not, MCI has proven that even a pandemic cannot stop them from doing what they do best – teaching. I did not even realise the lockdown at MCI, because the excellence of communication and the organisation was brilliant considering the improvisation running behind the scenes. We switched to online courses so fast that we did not even realise it.  Some of the courses were synchronous – live, some of them were asynchronous - offline. We were assigned homework in groups or alone.

Generally, it worked very well for me, I could organise my life, and school was still at the first place. With the given flexibility, I could arrange for everything I wanted from literally all over the world. Since March the borders were closed but other blockages, for example, towards technology were at that time falling too. We have had meetings and lessons online and suddenly it was no longer important where are the students.

Definitely, we have our lessons learned during the Corona-time talking about technical problems, talking about professors not even knowing the technology, talking in skype meetings with duration about 3 or more hours. Anyway, I’m so proud now, that I can say, that I study at the top!"