My name is Philipp Herzberg, I graduated from Jacobs University in 2012 with a B.Sc. in Cognitive Psychology and Neurobiology. I am a co-founder of ZenTeach and currently working as a science teacher at the International School Berlin (ISB). 10 years have passed since I graduated from Jacobs and I was excited to see old familiar faces at the 10 year alumni reunion on campus.
“People don’t change much.” I generally always agreed with that statement, but I was still surprised by how little my former classmates had changed.
Who we are is of course a very dynamic concept, adding to it with every experience we have and every decision we make, but much of who we are has hardened from moldable clay into fixed shapes. This is not a bad thing. Knowing that your personality and your preferences are to some large extent fixed can be very comforting. It means you can rely and build on them.
I always enjoyed telling stories. So many of my sentences as a kid started with “Did you know that…”, which probably drove my parents mad from time to time. Like a dormant seed, that intrinsic joy of telling stories needed an outlet, which came in the form of film production.
When I was 10 years old my dad asked me to digitize 80 video cassettes of family events he had recorded in the 80s and 90s. I gathered experience in film editing, which became a cornerstone and a jump-off point for future endeavors. When I was 11 I got my first video camera and became “the film guy” in school and later at Jacobs, recording everything from evening talks and university performances. I produced a few educational science videos.
As things go, life forced me to focus on other things for a few years. I trained and worked as a teacher at a secondary school in London (another form of telling stories!) and only recently decided to come back to film. This time in the form of a YouTube channel on pedagogy (https://www.youtube.com/@RedefiningEducation).
Here is what I’m trying to say:
We all have intrinsic personality traits that are fixed across time and which are looking for an outlet. Part of life is to figure out what those fixed traits are and how to let them grow. Maybe my YouTube channel will be successful, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I enjoy doing it because it is an expression of myself and I feel more in tune with it than without. Maybe it’s just the teacher in me, but I hope you can find your seeds and grow them.
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Want to get to know Philipp better? Get in touch with him via his LinkedIn:
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If you want to be featured as an Alumni of the Month, please write an email to adiprimio@jacobs-alumni.de
The idea is to get to know each other better, make new connections, and just keep up with one anothers lives a bit. Philipp chose to share his motivations, his drivers, and his passion with you.
However, you can also share things that happened recently to you (e.g. you started a new startup, had a child or got married, went to an amazing concert, travelled to a new spot, etc.), things you want to promote (e.g. job offer, publishing a book, starting a podcast, etc), or share your story since you left the university. It’s up to you!
