From Words to Deeds

Follow up: Merve Kayikci, Legal Studies (Tübingen and Mainz), internship with Campus TV at the University of Tübingen
Today: Innovation manager and freelance journalist

Just take our mobile reporting kit with you!’ The day Merve Kayikci, then editor in chief of Campus TV at the University of Tübingen, dared to go to re:publica to become a reporter was a turning point in her career. Equipped with technology from the Center for Media Competence, she interviewed Germany’s digital elite in Berlin on her own and then edited her recordings. Kayikci, who studied law in Tübingen, had only recently started as an intern – a program that allows students to work on real TV programs. It was here that she realized what she wanted as a career: to actively help to shape the media world. Soon after, she developed her first podcasts, worked as a journalist, wrote stage plays and devised exhibitions. Today, she works as innovation manager at SWR X-Lab and as a freelance journalist.

Follow up: Winfried Hermann, German Studies, Political Science and Sports Science
Today: Former Baden-Württemberg Minister of Transport (2011 to 2026).

You can’t not communicate’– Winfried Hermann has understood this ever since his studies. It is a concept originating from Paul Watzlawick, a communication scientist. In the 1970s, when the University of Tübingen was increasingly opening up to modern ideas, Hermann learned Watzlawick’s theories while on German studies (in the field of  communication/linguistics). He was particularly impressed by the concept of ‘paradoxical intervention’. In deadlocked situations, Hermann often chooses to react in ways his counterparts do not foresee: sudden changes of subject, startling openness, agreement where opposition is expected. What once fascinated him in seminars has proved to be a highly effective tool in everyday politics.

Follow up: Edwin Rosen, English Studies and Philosophy (currently on a break)
Today: Musician with 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify

While studying English, Edwin Rosen was fascinated by literature that avoided clear interpretation. It was the mood produced by a literary work that interested him, not the mere story. And he chooses to take this approach in his passion, music. When Rosen writes songs, he doesn’t tell cut-and dried stories, instead immersing his audience in moods – sometimes melancholy, sometimes gloomy. He launched his synth pop on the wider world during the Covid pandemic. In ‘leichter // kälter’, his first hit, released while still studying, he sings: ‘Doch du sagst, es ist viel leichter / Ja, ich sei doch so viel kälter / Also bleibst du steh’n / Bleibst barfuß im Schnee.’ The context is deliberately kept vague, he avoids explanations.

Follow up: Cathrin Kahlweit, Russian and Political Science (Eugene, Tübingen, Göttingen and Moscow)
Today: Journalist, Eastern Europe expert, presenter

Following her studies and journalism school, one of Cathrin Kahlweit’s first assignments for the Süddeutsche Zeitung was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Kahlweit was the only one on the editorial team who spoke Russian, and she wanted to travel, so she spent the early years of her career as a reporter in Eastern Europe. From there, she reported on major political events: the Velvet Revolution in Prague, the Singing Revolution in the Baltic, the Maidan Uprising in Ukraine. Even during her studies of Russia and politics, she saw the bigger picture: 'At uni I didn't just focus on the subject I was taking, I also attended other lectures and picked up new ideas and contacts there.’