How do LMU students spend their semester break?

Shortly before the start of the new summer semester, it's getting warmer and the streets around the main building at Geschwister-Scholl-Platz are filling up with student life again. But what has the LMU students' lecture-free period looked like so far? And what are they doing in the remaining weeks? A few impressions:

Juliaj supports the initiative Students for Ukraine Munich

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"During the time off from lectures, I was actually planning to take care of a few gaps of a personal nature - brush up on my language skills, bury myself in the library for a few days. But then the war broke out in Ukraine. And all of a sudden the calls started coming from home, everything was suddenly very weird and I had to do something to somehow stay functional in this situation. Through an online meeting of the philosophy student council, the Students for Ukraine Munich initiative came into being.

I also immediately had the idea that I would like to support this initiative, especially in communication, which started with advertising for the demonstration on February 28 here at LMU. I would not have thought that this coordination work would become such an effort.I can't watch the news and then go back to my university stuff, while in another place people are losing their country and everything they've ever owned. The initiative has given me back some of my mental peace because it counters this powerlessness and helplessness in the face of the situation.

Fortunately, my lecturers have granted me deferments for my levies precisely because I am a sufferer myself. Maybe I'll still manage to take refuge in my essays, to block out a bit what's actually really happened in the last few weeks."

Stefan researches climate change

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"I finished my bachelor's degree in physics in the summer and will now start my master's degree in April after various internships. Besides university, I am involved in the student consultancy Academy Consult, enjoy playing spikeball in the English Garden or can be found surfing on the Eisbach wave. I also spend a lot of time in the mountains, whether it's touring and skiing in the winter or hiking in the summer. In the fall, I applied to the Center of Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), which offers an Honors Degree in Technology Management that I am pursuing alongside my Master's degree.

During the semester break, I will start the first module of the curriculum, the Trend Seminar. Over the course of seven weeks, students work intensively on a topic relevant to the future. This semester break we will research "Tackling climate change in the AI era", work out possible future scenarios and develop ideas for sustainable digital business models based on this.

On the one hand, I am looking forward to the interdisciplinarity at CDTM. During the trend seminar, you work in teams with students from all kinds of degree programs. It's a great way to get out of the physics world of formulas and numbers and gain experience that I can grow from personally, but that isn't necessarily taught in physics courses. On the other hand, I would like to try myself out in a completely different environment and test boundaries. Especially with my physics background, I often bring a different perspective and look forward to getting to know and working with other motivated and dedicated students."

Daniel helps people in Ukraine

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"For the lecture-free period, I had actually planned to write master's applications and to orient myself thematically as to what I would actually like to continue working on in the near future. Due to the war in Europe, these plans seem very void to me. To me, this means that we have a duty to do something. It's simply reached the point where you can't sit around and carry on as before. That's why I also started to get involved in the Students for Ukraine Munich initiative. It is important to me that we help directly with the initiative and do not pass on the responsibility to the politicians.

As students, of course, we cannot change the course of the war, but we can make life a little easier for individual people in Ukraine. The initiative accepts donations in kind in the Adalberthalle on the corner of Amalienstraße and Adalbertstraße from Monday to Saturday between 4 and 7 pm.

For myself, I can't represent not helping, and I hope that many other people feel the same way. The initiative will probably take up my entire semester break - I'll end up with fewer master's applications, but at least I won't have to live in a bomb shelter."