Meeting the Man | Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger, President of FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
On 27 November 2024, I stood in front of the Schloss building, room 1.033 of FAU, feeling a mix of excitement and nerves. Our appointment with the President of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger, was scheduled for 2:30 PM. I was joined by two other PWA scholarship recipients (Ms. Mia Turbic and Alejandro Gomez Lopez) for this special occasion. At the scheduled time, we stepped inside and were warmly introduced to the President by our Scholarship Coordinator, Ms. Jennifer. She had told us earlier that this meeting was an opportunity to meet the President, learn about his work, and ask questions about our academic journeys. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious; what if he asked me something academic and I froze? But all that faded the moment he greeted us with the same charismatic smile and approachable demeanor we’d seen during the FAU Awards Night. While we didn’t get to interact much with him then, meeting him in pers...