Find the right distance learning programme for you

Your personal strengths determine which tasks you can easily access and quickly develop solutions for. They are made up of innate talents and skills learned over the course of your life. If, for example, you have always had an affinity for numbers but not much pleasure in reading and formulating creative language, then a degree in Business Administration is far more suitable for you than a degree in linguistics and literature.

While skills are about hard skills, soft skills are about character traits. They determine how you behave in certain situations and react to your social environment. Therefore, they are also extremely relevant for your choice of study and career. Soft skills are divided into different competencies:

• Personal competence concerns how you deal with yourself, for example, through self-confidence, self-reflection and self-discipline.

• Social competence describes how you interact with other people. It determines, for example, how well you can put yourself in the position of your fellow human beings, whether you are a team player who is willing to compromise or how you react to personal conflicts.

• Finally, there is methodological competence, which is closely linked to the other two areas of competence. It is responsible for the way you work and for your problem-solving strategies. This competence concerns, for example, your time management, skills to cope with stress or to motivate employees, but also presentations in front of an audience or dealing with new media.

Studying and working will be easier for you if you deal with content that makes you curious and moves you. So you are not working exclusively to earn money, but also to improve your knowledge and skills within your field of interest. Sometimes, it is not so easy to become aware of one's own interests. You can explore your interests by consciously asking yourself questions like: What could I talk about for hours? Why do I enjoy my hobbies? Where would I volunteer? With such episodes of self-exploration, you get to know yourself better and find out what really interests you.

Even if you don't have a concrete career aspiration yet, you may already have some ideas about the working conditions of your future job. These preferences are important because they define your future field of activity more precisely. For example, do you want to be out in nature or in the city, do you want to travel a lot or do you value a fixed location, do you want to work with other people or would you rather do your tasks alone? A degree opens up or facilitates your path to certain professional fields. Therefore, it makes sense to choose a study programme that is geared towards professions with the working conditions you want.

These individuals focus on interpersonal relationships and are particularly helpful, cooperative and empathetic. They seek close social contact and want to support other people. Study programmes from our areas Health & Social Services and Education & Psychology would potentially be a good option here.

This group includes people interested in cultural activities and aesthetics. They tend to avoid structured tasks and prefer to work independently and detached from firmly defined guidelines. They are particularly interested in expressing their creativity and strive to create their own aesthetic works. That’s why they often decide on artistic courses of study from the field of Design & Media.

These include competitive, ambitious and success-oriented people. They are motivated by competitive situations and like to take the lead. It is their job to coordinate other people and supervise their activities. Equally, they enjoy presentation and persuasion, for example, in attracting new clientele. They prefer study programmes from our fields of Business & Management and Marketing & Communication.

People of this type are practical. They enjoy physical activities that require strength, manual dexterity and coordination. They prefer concrete tasks and visible results instead of abstract and theoretical thought constructs. The functioning, construction and maintenance of technical (and also digitally supported) systems are at the centre of their attention. For this reason, they often choose their course of study and later profession from the diverse range of fields available in IT & Technology.

People with this field of interest favour carefully structured tasks. They have an eye for detail and organise themselves and their field of activity thoughtfully. Since they want routine, regulated and exact working methods, they take on tasks such as drawing up and checking contracts, maintaining data or processing business figures. Therefore, they choose study programmes from the field of Economics & Management.