Well equipped …

… we are ready for the freshman welcome next week on Monday. I just picked up three packages from the in-house print shop. And now posters, flyers and postcards with the program for the winter semester are waiting in our office to be distributed. If you feel like it, just drop by on Monday, October 9, on the Adolf Reichwein Campus, starting at 9:00 a.m. in the Audimax. We are looking forward to seeing you.

A somewhat larger poster and boxes with the new program flyers: Even if of course everything is available digitally, sometimes it’s nice to be able to hold something classically printed in your hand.

Planning is in progress …

… at full speed, but only a part of it is visible on this website. Therefore we ask for your understanding if some links do not work or if the events of the last semester are still visible. In any case, the overview page is already working. There you can already see what we have planned for you for the coming semester. And, good news, all events are already set up. We are looking forward to you and the new semester.

A picture from last winter: Let’s see how snowy the upcoming winter semester will be. Our seminars work in snow, too. Promised.

What you can do …

… with your studies. That was the title of today’s Career Service workshop on AR Campus. We were part of the theme day “doubts about your studies”, organized by the colleagues from the central student advisory service. The topic, not so easy. The participants, curious. And of course everything about finding you career path. Classical Career Service tasks.

The event was all about getting to know methods for developing your own individual strategies. Many questions, many new ideas. We would like to thank you for the interesting event and the lively participation. And if you still have questions while thinking about the ideas from today, just write an e-mail and we will see how we can find answers. We are looking forward to your questions.

Already the second name tag that I forgot to return. I think I will put it in the house mail tomorrow and send it back to the colleague.

Designing your future …

… is a challenge. As the University of Siegen is a part of the Advanced Technology Higher Education Network Alliance (ATHENA), we are also a part of the special ATHENA Career Service Program. Strong networks create new possibilities.

Interested in what we do?

On 19 October, for example, we invite you to join the ATHENA Career Event. It is online and we start at 9 am. How to register and what to expect can be found on the ATHENA Website.

https://athenauni.eu/athena-career-event-2022

We are looking forward to see you, because the future is just the next step.

Already curious…

… how the Podcast of the Career Service of the University of Siegen will sound? Here are forty five seconds with samples form today’s test recording. The name of our podcast is career:FRAGEN. This new program will be launched as a digital event on April 27th at 3 pm.

If you want to be part of the first real event, you can register via Unisono. [Link to the pre-announcement text]

The Zoom link will be sent directly to your email inbox on the morning of the event.

career:FRAGEN is for now in German. So joining it is a good idea if you want to gain some experience with the „German in an nutshell“ program. An English edition of the podcast will be released later this year.

To avoid getting mixed up: The first event starts on Wednesday April 27th at 3 pm, all other events are on Wednesday at 4 pm.

It was a little bit tricky but we enjoyed the process a lot! Here is a picture from the mixer in the recording studio of the ZIMT. Thanks to Oliver and André for the great introduction and support during the production.

Evening office hours …

… will now be available starting in December. For those who are perhaps on a traineeship and cannot make an appointment for counselling during the usual office hours, we also offer an appointment after 5 pm twice a week. Please send us a short e-mail with your telephone number so that we can call you back. We will then offer you an appointment at a time that suits you.

The little blue elephant …

… in the picture is trying to reach the telephone receiver with his ear. But at the moment, the Career Service is not so easy to reach by phone. The demand for counseling appointments is currently very high, and of course we can’t answer the phone during counseling. Therefore we ask you to send us a short e-mail (info@career.uni-siegen.de) with your request and your phone number. We will get back to you as soon as possible. – By the way, the blue plush toy that has found its place on my desk is a gift from Rainer Assion, who reported on career prospects in journalism and at WDR in career:FORUM. It was several semesters ago, but still in good memory. Thanks.

You’ve just …

… heard the last lecture. It’s 5 p.m., the online university day is over, you turn around, still on the desk chair. You spent the whole day in front of your screen, and now, from one moment to another, you’re at home. And that brings you back to questions, perhaps discussed in the morning at the breakfast table with parents or friends, and you wonder what you can do with all the academic stuff, later in your professional life. And of course you still have some applications waiting to be sent. The application for the internship, mandatory in the next semester for example, and for the job, of course, which you hope is to follow the study, seamlessly, if possible.

This is exactly the situation the career:IMPLUS seminars have been designed for. In the evening, when your university work has been done, one hour focusing on a topic from the area of application and career planning. Compact information, background knowledge and many opportunities to get involved, so that no question remains unanswered and the evening is relaxed and made well use of. The goal: You can plan your career path with a new perspective.

Changing perspectives: It doesn’t always have to be the desk when inspiration turns into action.

Emerging doubts …

… are not nice, of course. But if you look at them more closely, they are not such a bad way to start thinking about what you are doing right now and what you want to do in the future. To prevent your reflections from turning into musings, it is important to talk about them with others and to inform yourself. For this purpose, the central student advisory service is offering a digital theme day on Feb. 11, 2021. The Career Service will be there. The program can be found here: https://www.uni-siegen.de/zsb/psychologische/infoveranstaltung.html

Using creative methods: The snow on my small terrace as a whiteboard.

Outside I see the melting snow …

… and that makes me think of René Descartes and his „Discours de la méthode“, containing an autobiographic episode, where he describes how he, just passing through a small village near Ulm, prevented from continuing his journey by the unusually severe winter of 1619, found the leisure to contemplate his thoughts as he was enclosed all day alone in a small warm room.

Currently in the home office, browsing my home bookshelves, Descartes’ book fell into my hand and I got stuck on the little green volume, the bilingual edition of Felix Meiner Verlag.

Descartes contemplative time of leisure was the impetus for a text that, first published in 1637, has left its mark in the history of philosophy. Today, for me, in my profession as a counselor, it is an impulse to trust one’s own thinking, one’s own judgment, and to encourage the people I counsel to do the same.

Here are a few links as a suggestion to continue browsing and thinking about independent thinking and the impulses it can give one, for the diverse shaping of one’s own life path.
Text editions freely available on the net:

The French original: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Discours_de_la_m%C3%A9thode/%C3%89dition_Adam_et_Tannery

A German translation: https://www.textlog.de/descartes-methode.html

And an English translation at gutenberg.org (only available if you don’t have a German IP): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59

And then tow interesting pages:
The transcript (in German) of a Deutschlandfunk radio broadcast: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/descartes-und-der-schnee.700.de.html?dram:article_id=81434

And an article (in German) about a conference in Ulm: Artikel über eine Tagung in Ulm im Jahr 2019: https://www.uni-ulm.de/universitaet/hochschulkommunikation/presse-und-oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/unimagazin/online-ausgabe-uni-ulm-intern/uni-ulm-intern-nr-351-februar-2020/descartes/