First of all Wow, what a fantastic week I have had in St Gallen, attending both the pre-conference programme, then the conference itself and finally the after-the-conference celebrations. All of it was enriching on a personal and professional level and has definitely been a worthy challenge in my life. I had the opportunity to meet a huge variety of people from many places around the world, all of whom were very interesting and remarkably enterprising people.

To me above all, for once, I was not the only one who had traveled a lot and did not especially feel like I belong somewhere in particular in this world – I met others who are citizens of the world. I am French by birth and Canadian through my mother but I have moved to different places all my life and although even my closest family sometimes does not understand it, I have a different view on nationality and I have a rather nomadic lifestyle. I often think it would be great someday if this notion that one human being can detach him or herself from a specific national identity and adopt a wider one (edit: although I am not saying that I am not French or not Canadian) existed when it is not only about living on Earth but also on other planets – should it happen someday, who knows there might also be another way of doing things-. You might then hear someone like me say that they are a universal or cosmic citizen, doesn’t that sounds particularly nice in terms of adventure potential? Nowadays universal and cosmic are words that tend to avoid defining a sense of limitations. But surely someday – if we don’t destroy the human existence prematurely- we will need bigger words to explain what other unknown but expected challenges lie beyond our next geographical milieu and then cosmic and universal (although I believe the word universal has already become a slightly more limited word) will be in usage in the same limited way than worldly now is. Who and what will create this change? But enough on this divergence.

Many things made this an exceptional experience so I will discuss them in parts:

1) The participants themselves: The event was organized by a huge panel of students from St Gallen University and their work, organization and execution was breath-taking. It clearly defies any assumption that students cannot possibly be put in charge of world-class events and do as well if not better than most others. The organizers were all very friendly and I think they can really be proud of themselves. The helpers were also all very interesting people doing an excellent job and I had great discussions with some of them. There were 100 students including me selected for the essays they submitted for the Wings of Excellence Awards, with 3 winners of the competition who had the great opportunity to present their work in front of the audience of the symposium on the last day. There were also another 100 people, usually also students, who were selected by the organizers as knowledge pool for the symposium. Finally there were hundreds more of important business men and women, politicians, journalists, researchers and academics from all over the world some of whom were speakers at the Symposium. Everyone was someone who is actively trying to do something out of the ordinary and challenging. Their backgrounds were extremely diverse and I enjoyed talking to each person I was able to talk with. The networking opportunities alone were incredible and I look forward to hearing what the people I met will accomplish and tap into the possibilities to create more opportunities together.

2) The location: St Gallen itself was beautiful. The university was great too. As a medieval history student, I was thrilled to go to such a richly historical place. The Abbey library contains hundreds of fabulous manuscripts. I was recently researching music and sound in medieval magic and discovered, for example, that the first form of musical notes in Europe, called neumes, were partly developed in St Gallen by the monks and can be found in 9th century manuscripts there. All manuscripts can be found online [LINK], but it was really awesome to experience being there.

3) 100 years of Swiss Aviation: This year was not only an anniversary Symposium, 40 years, but also an anniversary for the Swiss aviation, celebrating its 100th year. For this occasion, both days of the Symposium we had the privilege to see a flight show by the Patrouille Suisse and on Thursday evening I attended the anniversary dinner. All of it was truly fantastic.

4) I challenged myself: One of my mottos is that if you feel fear, you must figure out why and face the object of that fear as soon as you know it. Well I had never experienced anything like this before, my business experience is limited because I am only just starting, I had never spoken in front of such a wide audience nor had I ever received such form of acknowledgment of belonging to a group of people, deserving to be there. I know this sounds strange, but I am actually more used to going against expectations, and although I was the only medieval historian and was often asked ‘so why are you interested in this symposium?’ (answer: ‘I have many interests and projects’) or even the always difficult to answer ‘where are you from?’ (to which I tend to reply, ‘I move a lot’), I felt very welcome. The symposium overall was a strange yet amazing mix of challenging and stimulating situations in a very formal context and a very inclusive type of -exclusive- event however confusing that may sound. For example: I asked a question at one of the plenary sessions. I was afraid of doing it, I rarely ask questions in public in general, I have the curiosity to think of a great many but I usually wait for more private conversations. It was great to try it. It sounds a small step but if you think about the audience there which was exceptionally big and filled with very important people, then how easy it is to ask a silly question and regret it, I’m glad I tried and I am happy with what I asked although I wish I had spelled it out more eloquently and clearly because I might have received better answers.

There is so much more to think of and as I start assimilating it all I shall post more but I believe these were the main things. I must thank the ISC team for the great opportunity, the students I became friends with there for making this an even more incredible experience, and my host who really welcomed me and helped me. I plan to do a Phd at some point later and accumulate experiences and projects in the meantime and I have this nagging feeling that it is a shame I will not be a student next year to participate again. I will try to become knowledgeable enough to come back in another category otherwise!

You can find all info on the symposium, photos and videos etc at the following link: http://www.stgallen-symposium.org/