Portrait of Professor Schlecht
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Berthold Schlecht has held the Chair of Machine Elements and been Director of the Institute of Machine Elements and Machine Design since 2001. He was born in Duisburg on the Lower Rhine in 1962.
Without machine elements ... there would be no machine, no plant and no vehicle. Drive technology, which is closely linked to machine elements, keeps everything moving in our society, which is striving for mobility.
Being a professor ... gives me the freedom to deal in depth with drive technology in general mechanical and plant engineering, which has been of particular interest to me since the 1980s, in teaching and research at university and in industry. Anyone who attends my lectures knows immediately that machine elements in high-power drives in cranes, metallurgical plants, open-cast mining equipment, ships, power generation plants, railroads and motor vehicles have their own special appeal. As the wealth of our country is largely based on the export success of mechanical and plant engineering, as a teacher I try to teach students both theory and industrial practice in order to prepare them for the diverse tasks in these sectors.
To study... literally means "to strive diligently". With this in mind, the ideal student should also have a natural curiosity about the diverse opportunities and challenges of engineering in the future. A good command of the mother tongue and at least one foreign language will make life as an engineer much easier.
In the future ... machine elements and drive technology will continue to be needed in order to be able to maintain appropriate living and environmental conditions in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way in a society that strives for mobility and safety.
If I could go back to university ... I would study mechanical engineering again, but I would supplement it with in-depth basic studies in the fields of electrical engineering and control engineering.
Excellence ... means nothing more and nothing less than an "outstanding achievement". If you want to be successful and at peace with yourself over a career spanning 45 years, you will have to stand out from time to time with outstanding achievements.