Leading by example: TUD members doing volunteer work

For our issue on volunteering, we asked four TUD members about their volunteer work inside and outside the university. You can read about the wide range of tasks and motivations here:

Carmen Helbig
Research associate and PhD candidate in Didactics of Chemistry, Faculty of Education and Chair of Construction, Wood and Paint Technology and Interior Design/ Vocational Didactics, Vocational subjects of Chemical Engineering, Didactics of Chemistry

What kind of voluntary work are you involved in?

I volunteer as a gymnastics coach for girls between the ages of 14 and 16 at the Dresdner Sportclub for friendly competitions. I train with the girls 2-3 times a week and also coach them at competitions.

What motivates you to volunteer? And how is it enriching for you personally? What about it do you enjoy?

In training, I want to create a safe space for the girls to try things out, pursue and achieve small goals over and over again and also learn how to deal with failures and setbacks.

As a gymnastics coach, you always have to figure out the best way to prepare certain elements for very different athletes and which approach works best - especially mentally - and this really helps them to have fun in training and maximize their athletic skills. It's pretty tiring and requires a lot of courage to try things out and fail, but it's all the nicer when everyone leaves the gym with a sense of achievement at the end.

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Franziska Kossatz
Mathematics master’s degree program

What kind of volunteer work do you do?

At TU Dresden, I am involved in student self-administration on a voluntary basis and I am also involved in several committees. I am currently the Managing Director for University Policy in the Student Council.
Previously, I was a member of the Mathematics Student Council and participated in the Senate of TU Dresden. I was also involved in the TU Environmental Initiative (tuuwi).
In addition to my work at the university, I also volunteer as an admissions assistant at church services in the Frauenkirche.

What motivates you to volunteer?

My parents got me involved in voluntary work in different clubs when I was a child and a teenager. So, this meant that I got into volunteering from an early age and have been involved in various initiatives throughout my life.

At university, I was able to familiarize myself with and came to love student self-administration. It was partly through friends and the will to make a difference at the university that I joined the various committees.

How is the voluntary work enriching for you personally? What about it do you enjoy?

What I enjoy most is getting to know other committed people. It's always nice to get new perspectives, and you often end up staying in touch with the people even after the work has finished.

Of course,I also find it very rewarding to implement projects and demands. A good example of this would be the anonymization of exams with matriculation numbers, which I campaigned for in the Senate in 2024.

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Hannah Baulig
...is finishing off her Master's degree in Psychology (Cognitive-Affective-Neuroscience) in March and currently works at the Student Health Management at TUD.

What kind of volunteer work do you do?

I am deputy chairwoman of the the association AufeinanderAchten (which is also a university group), where I am mainly involved in designing and running courses for pupils on mental health topics, but I also do public relations work, and as a board member I help develop the structure of the association and any projects. That is my main volunteer position. I also work as an author and editor for TU Dresden’s magazine Psycho-Path.

What motivates you to volunteer?

I was already involved in voluntary work in a sports club as a teenager. And when I moved to Dresden 2.5 years ago for my Master's degree, I wanted to take the opportunity to get involved in these kinds of social activities again. At AufeinanderAchten, I found the opportunity to pursue an issue close to my heart, namely raising awareness and destigmatizing mental health and illness. Psycho-Path gave me the opportunity to combine my creative passion with my scientific interests and to pursue my small dream for the future of becoming an author.

How is the voluntary work enriching for you personally? What about it do you enjoy?

On top of hearing all the positive feedback from the young people I work with — as they benefit greatly from learning about mental health in an accessible and open way — I feel more like I am part of society. I was able to meet lots of new, interesting people, develop lots of skills and make my free time productive and enriching. It also had obvious career benefits for me, as voluntary work always looks very good when looking for a job or applying for scholarships.

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Arne Fietkau
Research associate and PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at the Institute of Acoustics and Speech Communication (Chair of Speech Technology and Cognitive Systems)

What kind of volunteer work do you do?

I volunteer with the organization and bike repair shop at Willkommen in Löbtau e.V. and Werkstadtpirat*innen e.V.

What motivates you to volunteer?

Craftsmanship is a great way to unwind, and it allows me to make a small but positive contribution to our society.

How is the voluntary work enriching for you personally? What about it do you enjoy?

I find that interacting with people and stepping outside my own (academic) bubble is incredibly enriching.