If this area is considered by the people of your hometown to be a traveling distance, you may shorten the whole period

I went to seminar for 15 days to University. The location is 55km from my hometown. It’s also rural area. I’ve been in this university or this place before. We’re given dorms but to eat we travel 1.5km away. When I asked a sheikh about this, he said “you are considered as a traveler and you can shorten and join prayers for 15days but the maximum is 18days.” since then I’ve been shortening the prayers. Is this correct?

Prayer | August 28, 2014 4:59 pm
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Can you please tell me if I can recite Al Fathiha from Qur’an in Fard prayer as I find it very difficult to recite it from my memory because of Waswas. If not what should I do then as it takes me a very long time to complete my prayers.
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I am aware that we cannot pray the deliberately missed salah. But my question is – I live and work in a non muslim country(India) and I can not pray Asr as my employer would not accept me removing time from work hours for my personal work ,though I pray dhuhr in lunch break. I needed to know, is this considered deliberately missing salah?