Portrait of Professor Will
Prof. Frank Will has held the Chair of Construction Machinery at since December 1, 2017. He was born in Cologne in 1965 and grew up in Bremen. As a North German, he is not easily flustered and, as a supporter of SV Werder Bremen, he is used to grief.
Without construction machinery, there would be no infrastructure - no buildings, no traffic routes and no soccer stadiums.
Being a professor was never really my goal, but now I'm happy that I am and that I can use and pass on my diverse professional experience.
Students should have enthusiasm for their subject (or at least be enthusiastic about it). Goal orientation and focus in your studies are good and important, but you should always look at other disciplines with interest, openness and respect - even if they often "tick strangely" from the point of view of a mechanical engineer (which, by the way, applies the other way round as well).
In the future, there will be no shortage of research topics, even in an application-oriented field such as construction machinery technology. In addition to trend topics such as digitalization and autonomy (construction machinery 4.0), traditional mechanical engineering projects will continue to accompany us. Here too, an interdisciplinary interest in related specialist areas is necessary or at least very useful.
If I could study again, I would probably end up back in mechanical engineering, at least I have never (!) regretted this choice. However, as I am much more broadly interested today than I was in my early 20s, I would also be interested in many other degree programs - from mechatronics, international business, architecture or logistics to sociology, psychology or journalism. But in the end it would probably be mechanical engineering again.
A university can only embody excellence if each individual strives to achieve excellence and thus contribute to the whole.