From zero knowledge of German to Bundestag employee
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Interview done by Antoaneta Ivanova At the moment you are situated in Berlin, Germany(August 2012). How do you spend your 9 to 5 working time?
Artan Mehmedi: Precisely, being in Berlin, my working day more or less is within those hours. As a part of the German Bundestag International Stipend Programme, I work in Dr.
Johan Wadephul’s team from CDU who together with CSU comprise the biggest proportion of the Bundestag. It is a great honour and pleasure to work with Mr. Wadephul, who is very familiar with the situation in the Balkans and all along is a correspondent/ reporter for Macedonia in the German Parliament. Most of the time I work in an office where my tasks are helping research on specific actual topics which are daily reviewed in Plenum as well as in the other committees.
For many years now you are living outside Macedonia. What are the advantages to being out of your home country, and what are the things you miss?
Artan Mehmedi: I would directly say that I see the advantages on professional and educational levels. To leave your home country in search of something new is highly recommended, especially if you are up for developing a successful career. To stay on topic, living outside your home country is of very important and positive significance. Only that way, one can meet with different cultures and mingle with different people coming from different backgrounds. Macedonia is an environment where many ethnic groups live together and it is of very great importance for all residents of this country to understand and learn that intercultural collaborations and understanding exist everywhere in the world. And of course there are the disadvantages: it can be seen and felt on an emotional and social level. You will miss your close circle of friends and family, but that is the price to be paid if you don’t want to be just an average person in the society.
Which of your personal experiences so far you would mark as exceptionally important for your education and your career?
Artan Mehmedi: There are a few of them and all of them have their own weight – but most exceptional of all would be my choice to to study Political Science in Vienna, additionally in German language – a language unknown to me at the time. It was a very important personal event which still motivates me for new challenges. It would be a lie if I told you that my job in the German Parliament is not something special as well. I learn new things every day and I can feel how true democracy functions. I must point out my passions as well – the simulation ‘games’ on how the UN works, or NATO, EU, the World Bank, G20, etc. No better way than these simulations comes to my mind for youth to learn in an instant of time how these institutions work.