HAInews 2023/02Studied Sociology or Politics – then what?
Sociology and Political Science have a long tradition at Heidelberg University – but what happens after graduation for political scientists and sociologists? Students of both subjects received first-hand information about this at two events in the series “Career Perspective” with reports on the experiences of former Heidelberg students.
At the “Career Perspective” events, which HAI offers in cooperation with the Career Service and the heiSKILLS Competence and Language Centre of the University for graduates of various fields of study, Heidelberg alumni who have successfully mastered their career entry pass on their experiences to current students. The institutes of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, which includes the Institute of Political Science (IPW) and the Max Weber Institute of Sociology (MWI) as well as the Alfred Weber Institute of Economics (AWI), have been located together on the newly created Bergheim Campus in the building of the former Krehl Clinic since 2009. In January 2023, the event “Career Perspectives in Economics” provided information about possible career fields for AWI graduates, and now the two other institutes of the faculty continued in May and June.
Sociology kicked things off on 23 May: In the atrium of the Bergheim Campus, HAI and the Career Service as well as Stefan Beljean from the new HAI group Sociology (MWI Alumni) first welcomed the approximately 50 students on site as well as the 24 students connected online and presented the Career Service's offers for applications and career entry as well as the new alumni group. Afterwards, Prof. Dr Markus Pohlmann, representing the institute, gave a lecture on the topic of "Careers in organisations – personnel recruitment and career paths of academics", before three alumni and one alumna gave insights into their different jobs and their everyday working lives: Robin Keppler, HR project manager at SAP, Laura Hauck, consultant at the auditing firm Ernst & Young, Christoph Ziegler, project officer at the Karlsruhe Project Management Agency (PTKA), which oversees research and innovation projects at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and Maximilian Stapf, employer branding officer in the personnel marketing department at Bauhaus AG. After the event, there was a get-together organised by the sociology student council, where the students could exchange ideas with the speakers and receive numerous tips for their individual career start. The feedback on the event was consistently positive from all participants and the demand exceeded the expectations of the organisers.
The “Career Perspectives” event for prospective political scientists, which took place on 15 June on the initiative of Prof. Dr Reimut Zohlnhöfer from the IPW, also met with great interest: More than 80 listeners came to Lecture Hall 4 of the New University to hear about the career paths taken by five former political science students from Heidelberg. In addition to Reimut Zohlnhöfer himself, who described the path to his professorship and his work as a professor, Dr Linda Degen, who works as a personal assistant to the Secretary General and the Executive Board at the German UNESCO Commission, reported on the spot. Via video call joined Alexander Demling, who reports as a Silicon Valley correspondent for the “Spiegel”, Claudia Zilla, who is a senior fellow in the Americas research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) and conducts research on Latin America and the Caribbean, and conflict researcher Dr Nicolas Schwank, who founded CONIAS Risk Intelligence as a spin-off from the IPW and has been systematically recording and analysing the frequency and dynamics of political conflicts in a database for more than 20 years. Despite the summer heat in the lecture hall, the participants followed the reports with interest and enthusiasm and asked questions.
Have you also successfully mastered your career entry into the German job market after your studies at Heidelberg University and would like to give current Heidelberg students an insight into your career entry and answer questions from the audience? Then we are looking for YOU as a speaker for events in the “Career Perspectives” series!
Get in touch with us at any time via karriere@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de