“Sharing with other people increases the fascination”

Subhead: Friendly advisor

Most students take a while to find their feet at the university. It was no different for Rahel Brügger when she started her studies in biology and philosophy. “I was overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of opportunities. The university felt anonymous and impersonal,” she explains. What she lacked was a person to talk to, to “connect with emotionally,” someone sympathetic to show a personal interest and guide her through this difficult initial phase.

The turnaround came when she began working as a tutor. “From the moment I started giving advice and support to other students I felt I’d really arrived at the university myself.” Now she was able to be for other people what she would have needed herself when she started out: A mentor, someone to talk to openly and honestly. She supported fellow students with the courses they were doing, answering all sorts of questions, helping them with research, and giving her opinion on their essays. The benefits in terms of her own knowledge of her subject were enormous: As a tutor she had to engage even more deeply with the material than she would have in the course of her regular studies. “But I gained just as much on a personal level as I did in terms of my subject,” she says.

Now Rahel is doing a PhD in anthropology, investigating how ethics have developed in the course of evolution. Her work involves observing the behavior of primates. She’s passionate about the project. Supporting students, something she did of her own accord when she was a tutor, is now a requirement. But it’s a requirement she’s happy to meet: “I put a lot into guiding and supporting people, which makes the good feedback even more gratifying. It’s such a great feeling to infect other people with your own enthusiasm.”(dwe)