On June 28/29, more than 100 university members and education policy stakeholders met at the TU Berlin to discuss central issues of study and career orientation. The conference was organized by the Network Orientation (Study) Programs together with the BMBF-funded joint project VerOnika.

In his keynote address, Dr. Ulrich Heublein of the German Center for Higher Education and Science Research (German abbrev. DZHW) defined study doubt as "the serious consideration of dropping out of a course of study or changing the subject." And any study doubt is ultimately based on "study decisions that were associated with recognized or unrecognized orientation deficits and uncertainties."

In the panel discussion that followed, speakers Dr. Cornelia Raue (Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre), Prof. Dr. Uwe Elsholz (FernUniversität Hagen) and Dr. Ulrich Heublein (DZHW) emphasized the importance of orientation programs at the transition from school to university: "They help to cope with the growing flood of information, to deal with one's own interests and abilities, to make concrete (study) experiences and to get to know their requirements."

In addition to authentic learning experiences at the university, practical experiences in companies were also highlighted as central to successful orientation. The Orientation Program of the TU Dresden (German abbrev. OSM), which was presented by the research assistant Christina Schulz during the poster session, starts exactly here: The goals of the OSM program are not only to gain study experience by attending regular lectures, seminars and tutorials, but also to gain practical experiences through workshops, excursions and the OSM project week. At the same time, reflection spaces are created in which the participants can compare their interests, skills and goals with the experiences they have gathered.

The conference program and detailed documentation can be found on the VerOnika website.