MathMods :: Joint MSc

Congratulations to our students who graduated at the same time on the same day (Thursday, September 15, 2016) but in two different places:

• L'Aquila (Philip Chan, Evans Etrue, Rodrigo Malavazi, Amr Ibrahim)
• Barcelona (Mael Guiomard, Thimjo KOCA, Boris PFAHRINGER and Boris Polcik )

Now that's a consortium! All the best for your future!

Here are a few photos from the excursion we made today (Sept 13, 2016) on mount Gran Sasso with our first and second-year students from MathMods and InterMaths (there were almost 80 of us!).

We took an "EASY" path from Campo Imperatore up to Rifugio Duca Degli Abruzzi. Then we had an arrosticini barbecue at Fonte Vetica (we're sure everyone has fallen in love with them by now!). Later in the afternoon we stopped by in the medieval village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, where we made our way through its narrow cobbled streets.

We hope you all enjoyed the trip as much as we did! See you on the next trip.

A terrible earthquake struck central Italy at 3.36 this morning, August 24th 2016. We would like to express all our sympathy to all the people who are suffering in Amatrice, Accumoli and other nearby villages. At the same time, we wanted to reassure all our students that, although it might seem relatively close to L'Aquila from a non-Italian viewpoint, the hit area is actually at around 1 hour's drive from here. And, besides that, the geological fault affected by the earthquake is different from the one running underneath L'Aquila. Therefore, as far as this specific earthquake is concerned, it is not strictly related to the city of L'Aquila, although several shakes were clearly felt even here. 

Once again, let us express our condolence to the all the people who lost their beloved in this terrible disaster.

Last Friday we went out for a guided tour in English through the Airbus plant in Finkenwerder (Island of the finches) located at the Lower Elbe.
We met at Landungsbrücken, the heart of the touristic part of Hamburg port where we took a ferry to Finkenwerder. The special feature of the this harbour ferry is that it forms part of the fare-collection joint venture between different transportation companies (HVV) so that the semester tickets and other public transport tickets are valid on the ferry as well.
Since the sky was bright and sunny lots of tourists were with us and we spent the crossing on the upper deck enjoying the sun and the wonderful Hamburg panorama. (Landungsbrücken-Tower, the cupola of the Old Elb-Tunnel, St. Michel Church, Elbphilharmonie and lots of (container) ships, a few of them really enormous. We even saw the favourite ship of the Hamburg people, Queen Mary II which currently stays for renovation works in Dock Elbe 17 at the shipyard "Blohm and Voss". It was a lot of fun since a few of us who stand a bit close to the bow got a slight shower due to the waves swell.
Once in Finkenwerder we got on the bus which brought us to the Airbus plant. It was a good idea to make a group photo in front of the Airbus plant entrance because inside it was strictly forbidden to take photos for high-security reasons.
Airbus Hamburg-Finkenwerder is the leading aircraft manufacturer in Europe and with 12.500 employees one of the most important employer in Hamburg. Our Canadian guide, Mr Chraplak, made of our visit an unforgettable and wonderful experience. Many thanks from all of us! After instructing us about the rules how to behave during the visit ("no photos or I'm dead", "don't move from the group" "there is always a bodyguard behind us" etc) he gave us an excellent insight in this amazing company. It was very instructive and entertaining. We learnt a lot about the aircraft families, the logistics and the final assembly in Finkenwerder. We visited a few hangars to take a closer look at the aircrafts. We even had the chance to see an aircraft 380 which was on the square outside in the term to be delivered right away to its customer.
What has our MathMods programme in common with Airbus?
Right: We are as international as Airbus is. Our students come from around the globe, Airbus is a global aircraft manufacturer with plants in France, Germany, Spain, England, the United States, China, Japan, India, the Middle East, Singapore, Miami ...

I think everyone enjoyed the visit. The photos after the visit speak for themselves.

Many thanks for joining us and for contributing to a wonderful experience!