New tool to promote health

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September 6, 2017

Integrating academic education with extracurricular activities –  that is the idea behind a unique approach to promote health at Jacobs University. 
Freshmen in this academic year are required to take part in the new class “Success in Studies, Career and Life”, which is an active lifestyle workshop consisting of a 1-hour lecture with about 100 students and subsequent satellite group sessions with about 20 students, as well as voluntary fitness tests.

In the workshops, students will learn not only general topics regarding distress and eustress, health-promoting acculturation, success with studying at a university and translating challenges into personality development. They will have the option to get appetizers of very different exercises such as Yoga, Soccer, and others. Assessments of students’ performance, subjective indicators of well-being, acculturation and learning satisfaction might help to manage stress more effectively.

Participation in these evaluations will present the students a great opportunity to monitor their trajectory over the time during their studies at Jacobs University, and track their success, or get supportive suggestions for adaptions in terms of suboptimal patterns. This project is planned with a one-year pilot time frame and potential adaptions accordingly, and with an overall evaluation framework of three years and the perspective to maintain this approach afterwards in daily practice at university and beyond.