On 17th Dec 2020, during the second wave of the pandemic, I successfully defended my PhD. The defence was organized partially online in order to respect the rules put in place by the university.
The saddest part of my defence was that there was no safe way to celebrate. I also happened to defend my thesis a day before the institute closed for holidays — so many people were on vacation, in addition to the internal staff-rotation rule. Moreover, since I was moving to Austria a week after the defence, the entire prospect of having a full-fledged good-bye party was also off the table.
Overall, a sad end to the days in Strasbourg. Starting from my masters, a total of five years were spent in this beautiful city, saw it change with the seasons, met a bunch of cool people, and made a lot of fun memories.
Hoping to go back to Strasbourg some day.
