cally challenging. Unquestionably, the
psychological challenges can be huge,
since firefighters face very unpleasant
situations that not everyone can han-
dle. The physical challenges include
regular trainings and a great variety of
alarm calls, which are unusually com-
mon in Tübingen (at least once a day!).
On top of all that come the extra events
firefighters participate in, for example
different competitions or public events
like the annual Open Door Day, which
took place on the 21st of May this year
and included everything from cooking
and serving to intense fire alarm dem-
onstrations.
The highly challenging nature of fire-
fighting has deeply touched Johannes
and Tobias on both a scientific and a
personal level. Their training empha-
sizes focus, care, and an ability to pri-
oritize and make decisions: traits that
can easily be adapted to the world of
research. More to the point, facing dif-
ficult situations with human lives on
the line grants them a different per-
spective of life, one in which failed ex-
periments or rejected papers are not
all that important.
While it is a lot of work, firefighting can
also bring many benefits to one’s daily
life. Surprisingly, one of the benefits
is fun, as Johannes and Tobias both
mentioned. Fun can come from the
physical aspects of firefighting, but the
social benefits seem to play the most
important role. Firefighters risk their
lives together: at every alarm call, they
depend on each other to stay safe and
to stay alive. Naturally, this makes
Tobias at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (left) and Johannes at the Tübingen
Applied Physics Institute (right)
for very close friendships, forming a
strong connection hard to replicate in
a laboratory environment.
Another perk of being a firefighter for
both Johannes and Tobias is the nu-
merous new people they meet. Get-
ting to know people from completely
different backgrounds and learning
from them is a common occurrence
for a firefighter, in contrast to a scien-
tist. It is in the nature of a scientist to
learn, and yes, we scientists find that
fun. However, we usually expect to
learn within academia and teach out-
side of it. This attitude of ours may be
responsible for our occasional detach-
ment from society. But Johannes and
Tobias are free of this myopia and, as
they both said, their communication
with various people has kept them
grounded, widened their perspec-
tives, and even helped them in their
research.
Johannes and Tobias have learned a
great deal from volunteer firefighting
and their experiences have made them
into two grounded and competent
people, as well as better scientists.
Two people that managed to contrib-
ute to society through both their re-
search and their volunteer work, while
simultaneously juggling academic ca-
reers and full, happy personal lives.
They both got married this summer
(2017) by the way! We all wish them
the best!
Now it is our turn to learn from them
and take a break from our labs and of-
fices occasionally to do things outside
of our comfort zone and independent
from science, but most importantly, to
be humble and open to different expe-
riences and people.
Do you want to learn more? Watch the
videos with Johannes and Tobias an-
swering a few important questions in
their own words (on the neuromag.net
homepage)
If you want to volunteer as a fire-
fighter, you can always contact the
fire station. In Tübingen, is seems at
least some knowledge of German is
necessary. Check the website for more
information: feuerwehr-tuebingen.de.
Ioanna Karamichali is
a PhD candidate at the
Max Planck Institute for
Developmental Biology in
Tübingen, Germany.
Johannes and Tobias at the Open Door Day
November 2017 | NEUROMAG |
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