High practical relevance and quick career entry: Witten/Herdecke University once again achieves top results in graduate survey

Graduates of Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H) are very satisfied with their degree programme. This is the result of the latest survey by the Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT). For many years, the UW/H has participated in the nationwide co-operation project Graduate Studies (KOAB), in which around 150,000 alumni take part every year. The current report focuses on the graduating class of 2020/2021.

"Our graduates are sought after in practice," says Prof Dr Dirk Sauerland, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Society. "The vast majority of them have a job three months after graduating - and write a maximum of five applications. These are great figures that we also want to achieve with our three new Bachelor's degree programmes, which we introduced in the winter semester 2023/24." Decisive key figures are provided, for example, by the question of the skills acquired during the degree programme compared to the actual job requirements. The figures prove this: The investment in Witten/Herdecke Private University pays off! UW/H alumnae and alumni have crucial skills for a successful start to their careers: They can think in a solution-orientated and strategic way, are self-reflective and able to work in a team and take criticism. In addition, they can apply their theoretical knowledge in practice and react flexibly to new situations. For the "Management" and "Philosophy, Politics and Economics" degree programmes, the values determined in these assessment categories were 100 percent in some cases and thus even exceeded the information on professional requirements.

Unique teaching concept at the UW/H pays off

"For us, the alumni survey is an important measuring instrument and gives us an overview: What is going well and where might we need to make adjustments?" says Prof Dr Stefan Zimmer, Dean of the Faculty of Health. Overall, the graduates gave the UW/H good to very good grades. Almost 80 per cent of participants stated that they were satisfied with their studies - the figures were particularly high in the Psychology (90-100%) and Dentistry (85%) degree programmes. The health degree programmes also scored well in the "practical relevance" category (dentistry: 100%, psychology: 90%, human medicine: 76%). Prof Dr Stefan Zimmer is convinced: "The unique teaching concept of our model university is paying off here. We provide our students with a career-orientated education from day one."

Through the coronavirus pandemic with good support and counselling

The period covered by the alumni survey falls within the coronavirus years - a time when universities were confronted with considerable restrictions. "The high level of satisfaction among our alumni shows that we were able to maintain an attractive and career-preparing programme despite the pandemic and the associated restrictions," says Prof Dr Dirk Sauerland. While this time was often associated with fears for the future and great uncertainty for students, graduates of business degree programmes confirm that they found valuable support in their lecturers at UW/H (83% - 94% felt well advised and supported). Dirk Sauerland affirms: "With our excellent support ratio in teaching and counselling services, we can support our students individually and thus prepare them for a wide range of career and development opportunities."

Further information:

The cooperation project Graduate Studies (KOAB) is a project coordinated by the Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT, Kassel), in which university graduates from almost 80 universities are surveyed about their studies and career path around 1.5 years after graduation. The aim is to obtain comprehensive results on the evaluation of the degree programme. It is one of the largest social science research projects in Germany - more than 600,000 graduates have already taken part since the first survey.