Digital Media or Medieninformatik

I am in my last year of Digital Media, or Medieninformatik in German, at FH-Furtwangen, Germany. This 4-year degree was the first one in Europe when it was established in 1990, being on the forefront of digital media. It provides its students with a perspective of new media from a technical, marketing, conceptual, social and artistic point of view.

The degree enables me to work in the conceptualising, development and project management of multimedia applications or hard- and software tools for their development. We work in areas such as information, communication, presentation, teaching and learning.

As part of the degree we do two internships, each 6 months long, to gain hands-on industry experience. To get an international point of view of Digital Media I decided to do my first industry placement in 1996/1997 at Virtual Artists, Adelaide, Australia.

After I got back, I did another two semesters which involved a major one-year project characteristic of my degree. I was the project manager of a group of 5 people who collaborated on "Conceptualising a 3-dimensional operating system". We also developed a prototype using Virtual Reality technology and made a highly successful presentation at the end of the semester. This was the first time a student proposed topic was accepted for this course, and we then went on to achieve the highest score possible, 100%!

Iworked in Australia in 96/97 and returned in 1998 to study. I completed two external semesters at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, finishing my second degree, a Bachelor of Multimedia. This degree gave me another unique qualification in the new media field, from a different perspective.

I am currently writing on my thesis during the last 6 months of this degree. I do it in cooperation with FX Palo Alto Laboratory in California, USA. My topic is 'user interface design for video on the web'. I chose this topic because my very special interest is in the field of interface design and human-computer interaction. I also gained a lot of experience in the streaming media field, and I believe my knowledge in both can improve the experience people have with media on the web.