Otmar Böss: "It's worth venturing into the unknown"

Otmar Böss comes from Nassereith. There are more cows than people in this Austrian community, which is idyllically surrounded by the Tyrolean mountains and less idyllically situated on the busy Fernpass to Imst. "Village life is very rural and traditional, and a lot of childhood and youth is spent in the young farmers' association, music band and sports clubs," says Böss. His parents not only built a house in the village, but also set up a company in advertising technology. "We created logos, produced car lettering and made advertising signs for companies in the tourism industry in particular," reports Böss, who had his own play corner in the company premises and was present at almost every installation. "My father, my mother and I were a well-rehearsed trio through and through," says Böss.

That changed abruptly when his father, who was always in perfect health and never went to the doctor, one day complained of severe headaches that eventually led to fainting spells. Otmar Böss immediately called the emergency doctor. A short time later, his father was admitted to hospital in Innsbruck with a brain haemorrhage. "My father was a strong person who knew everything and had everything under control. When I suddenly saw him lying in a coma in the intensive care unit, my world collapsed," remarks Böss.

His mother was his rock, who now took care of everything and supported her then 15-year-old son in continuing his life in an orderly fashion. "This difficult phase brought us even closer together," mentions Böss. When it became clear that there was no chance of recovery for his father, who had been in a vegetative state for several months, Otmar Böss had to learn to make his own decisions, take his own risks and seize his own opportunities.

Otmar Böss followed in his father's footsteps until he completed his A-levels: from elementary school to secondary school to the Federal Commercial Academy for Business Informatics. "It was important to him that I had something solid in my pocket first. He was probably toying with the idea of me joining the family-run company later on and contributing my business skills there," explains Böss. However, he was actually more interested in the creative side of things and loved editing images and videos or creating logos and websites. "This led to the desire to study graphic design or architecture," adds Böss. His father's death led to the dissolution of the company. However, his civilian service, which he completed in a refugee shelter in Innsbruck, proved to be even more decisive for the rest of his life.

Shortly after completing his school-leaving exams and diploma with distinction, his job as the boy for everything suddenly consisted of pumping out the urinal in the refugee home and doing some real dirty work. "What put a psychological strain on me and made me think was the fact that refugees arrive full of confidence, but then wait so long for their decisions, crammed into the smallest of spaces, that they break inside," says Böss. "These injustices made me rethink things in the sense that I wanted to study something that would help me make the world a fairer place."

So he looked for a place to study that would quench his thirst for knowledge and not only tolerate critical thinking and questioning, but actually challenge it. In a tweet, he stumbled across the claim "between business, culture and politics" and, in Zeppelin University, a place where interdisciplinary study is possible. "I successfully applied for a place on the SPE Bachelor's degree course without talking to anyone or looking at the university in person," reports Böss. In August, he moved into a room in a shared flat and started at ZU in September.

"As a person who is enthusiastic about many things, it was and still is a dream to be able to deal with such a colorful and broad bouquet of topics between sociology, politics and economics," mentions Böss, who was fascinated by the open and previously unknown culture of discussion right from the start. On the other hand, student life was also overwhelming for him in the first two semesters, as a non-academic child who knew nothing about foreign words such as Kommiliton:in or Tutorium. "In my head, I was still in my familiar surroundings in my village for a long time because the university felt strange at first," says Böss, who went home every weekend for two semesters.