Lisa Begusch

How did Jacobs help you to reach your personal goals?

Jacobs prepared one for giving the best all the time, for pushing yourself further, for going the extra mile, and that is one way Jacobs has really helped me reach my personal goals. Because after studies, life often doesn’t become easier—you get confronted with new situations that you haven’t known before.

And that’s something that you could always learn here from difficult exam situations, to intercultural situations that you are always confronted with—meeting new people, different situations. If you wanted to put a word to it, I guess, it gave me resilience, to pursue my further path, and really do well in all my strivings. Even if it first doesn’t work perfectly, then to just continue and give your best.

What did you search for and find here at Jacobs University?

I sought a bachelor program back then, where I could learn many different things about the world, about politics, about social sciences, psychology. I really looked for a program where I could get a wide variety of insights and be a sort of a generalist, before specializing a bit more in a master’s program. What I found was a program that showed how complex the ecosystem of the world is; a program where you get to see the whole picture, all the different interdependencies between history, between politics, between economics, psychology, and how it all plays together in one big ecosystem. That is what I found: a really holistic program where you can learn many new things.

What were the strengths of your major?

What was also great to complement the major were the interdisciplinary courses, where you also got a different look into how the natural sciences would look at a problem, or a specific issue in the social sciences. That was a great complement of the two areas in order to just get a really holistic view.