Discover your potential beyond your degree programme
The Studium fundamentale of the UW/H
What is the Studium fundamentale?
The Studium Fundamentale (Stufu) is a central component of your studies at Witten/Herdecke University – it is a space for discussion, personal development and creative expression. Here, students from all disciplines and semesters come together to try new things, discover new perspectives and deepen their interests beyond their own field of study.
Whether it's music, theatre, philosophy or political debates – you are free to choose from around 100 interdisciplinary seminars whatever piques your curiosity. Thursday is traditionally Stufu day, when Stufu and subject studies complement each other perfectly.
Stufu encourages you to break out of familiar patterns of thinking, discover new talents – and challenge yourself. Are you ready to get to know yourself in a new way?
Your degree is about more than just specialist knowledge.
The ‘Studium fundamentale’ programme at Witten/Herdecke University fosters your personal, interdisciplinary and social development.
Skills for the future
In the seminars, you will develop:
- Critical thinking
- Self-reflection and resilience
- Communication and conflict resolution skills
- Social responsibility
- Learning through engagement
- Creativity and a change of perspective
A diverse range of relevant topics
Choose from a wide range of options:
- Philosophy, ethics
- Sustainability, climate, society
- History, politics, digitalisation
- Diversity, inclusion, volunteering
Art, music, theatre, photography and
Dance in theory and practice
The ‘Studium fundamentale’ programme will strengthen you –
in your studies, in your career and in life.
Do you still have questions
about the programme?
Do you have questions about
examination modalities?
More than just a university.
Stufu is the chance to develop myself by trying out different ways of thinking in different disciplines. It is precisely this competence - allowing and applying different ways of thinking - that I believe a university should provide: it should help you to become a complex, well-rounded and interested person.
Through the Stufu programme, I gain a more flexible perspective on the content of my main study programme by learning to integrate the perspectives of other disciplines into my thinking. Apart from that, the Stufu can become a saving anchor in times of compulsively focussed learning phases.
The idea of gaining fundamental personal development skills and competencies and exchanging ideas with fellow students from other degree programmes alongside a traditional business degree was extremely appealing to me.
For me, Studium fundamentale is the good soul of the UW/H and embodies what holistic education means: looking beyond your own subject, challenging your own perspectives with great students and committed lecturers, acquiring new interests and skills through mutual exchange and being able to grow as a person, not 'just' as an expert in your own degree programme.
Education instead of training - what better way to fulfil this formula than by engaging with the world's cultural assets? Whether it's artistic piano lessons, speech training for actors or night-time rhetoric seminars in a monastery. This is the Stufu: a colourful format in which everyone can learn a lot for life.
What sets us apart
Studying with us involves much more than just the degree programme of your choice. At Witten/Herdecke University, we stand out thanks to our vibrant and modern campus, our Studium fundamentale and, of course, the diverse range of people you’ll meet here. Shall we get to know each other better?