As a newcomer, seeing all these renowned scientists is an exciting feeling. Walking around and spotting the people who fueled my interest in geoscience, it feels like I know what they are thinking. Many of them inspired my way of thinking whether by coming up with brave but sometimes controversial ideas, a novel method to verify previous ideas, elegant and eloquent discussions, or a realistic assessment of their data and admitting that multiple processes can reproduce it. However, the feeling of knowing these scientists only too well (even though I have never met them before) does not come in handy when walking up to the stage to hold your first presentation at Goldschmidt…

At least that’s how I felt at this exact moment while walking to the stage and imagining what they might think about my data while transpiring all the water that I drank until then. However, after what felt like 2 minutes, my talk and following discussion were already over. At this moment, I actually wanted to talk more about my research and its implications as well as why it is so interesting to me.

At the end of the day, it was fun presenting my research and many other people are also interested in it, even if they perhaps have different opinions. Of course, that is okay, it’s even good. In the end, the discussion of different opinions by using well-founded arguments is what keeps scientific research alive. Without it, there wouldn’t be much work for us to do.

Cheers

Josua