News
“The tragedy of science is the smashing of a beautiful hypothesis by ugly facts.” ∼ Thomas Henry Huxley
News regarding covid-19
Still being in the middle of a global pandemic, the last and also the upcoming semester are special in many ways. In respect to the great danger the virus puts many members of our society in, we want to do our best to help protect those who are most vulnerable to this danger. Thus, dependent on the current situation, there is a set of new, temporary rules to keep in mind, both for us as people staying in Germany and as international students. TU Darmstadt set up a website where you can inform yourself about the latest developments and rules regarding COVID-19 at TU. Special information for Biology students can be found on the site of the Office for Student Affairs (Studienbüro) on Moodle.
Most importantly for us, we are currently not allowed to have official BioBuddies-Events. If you are an international student coming to Darmstadt in the upcoming Wintersemester 2020/21, you can still get assigned to a buddy, and you can also meet with other people privately, though. We also hope that we will be able to have our annual trip to Kleinwalsertal in summer, but we can’t promise yet.
The majority of courses will be held online, and there will be no lab skill course in the upcoming semester. Oral exams will also take place online if possible. Written exams will take place at the university with special rules to ensure hygienic protection. If you feel sick on the day of the exam, please withdraw from it by simply sending an email to your Office for Student Affairs (Studienbüro). Submitting a medical certificate is not required until 31st of October 2020. For newest information on this, please check the official TU website.
Published: 20.08.2020
First intercultural BioBuddies Workshop
On Friday, October 16th we had our first BioBuddies Workshop via Zoom! Susanne Neuer-Dow (TU Darmstadt Studienkolleg) prepared a great workshop about intercultural competence for us. We made cute little monsters, talked about what culture means (to us), and how things that are completely normal to one person can be the weirdest thing on earth to another person. We discussed how communication can work even when the other person has a completely different background, and how to overcome differences and discover what we all have in common. Finally, we talked about what responsibilities our tutors have and where the limits in helping their buddies are. As we aren‘t many buddies this semester, we had one workshop for internationals and tutors. The workshop will be established as an event that will take place every semester. This way we can train all buddies to become interculturally educated personalities. In the next semesters, we hope to have enough buddies to organize two workshops, one for our internationals and one for our tutors, so Susanne can adjust them even better to your situation.
Thank you to all our participants and again also thank you, Susanne. We are more than happy to finally establish this workshop with you!
Published: 19.10.2020
