My mom is an incredible woman. She born, raised and spent her whole life in Cyprus. Because of the war, she did not have the chance to continue her education. Therefore, she wanted me to get a good education, I guess. She did her best at every level to support me but sometimes she just didn’t understand what I want to do with my life and, certainly, she couldn’t imagine why do I need to choose the difficult all the time. My mother is a proud woman and even though we had our differences, I know some of her proudness comes from me.
I had quite a fancy and very fun time last week when KTH organized a conferment ceremony for us. There, while I was sitting and waiting for my name to be announced, I also felt quite proud. Not for the diploma or the ceremony but mainly feeling that I know people, I did things together with people and I have a relationship with many of them. I said hello to many people that day and they were the ones who worked with me not only doing research but also for things to do better research. We worked together for a better environment for Ph.D. students, we worked together to improve gender equality, we worked together on a sustainable future. We had meetings, workshops, discussions, and surely disagreements from time to time. But we did it together and learned from each other.
So I want to show my gratitude to the people who supported me, helped me, worked with me and taught me a lot about working together and building together, plus we had the chance to do research together. When I look back, I feel very lucky to have the supervisors, colleagues, friends, and students that I had. If I did anything to be proud and to show my mom about what I did, I would say that it is what I did with you people. Love you all! Hugs ❤
Didem Gürdür Broo 