Bonn Study Support Program “Be strong!”
“Be strong!”, the first structured study support program to be offered at the University of Bonn, launches in winter semester 2025/26. The “Be strong!” program is highly diverse, covers all phases of a degree program and will help you to find your way around your studies, acquire and consolidate specialist and methodological skills, and build up your own personal resources.
It will provide you with comprehensive, tailored support throughout your entire time as a student at the University of Bonn, from initial guidance in your first academic year through to your successful graduation.
A program in three blocks
The program is divided into three central blocks that will support you in different ways:
Well-guided!
Helping you to reflect and focus on your choice of subject or prepare for a change of subject.
Fit for your subject!
Courses and materials to (further) develop your academic and subject-specific knowledge and expertise.
Be empowered!
A wide range of courses on time and self-management, coping with stress, mental health and more.
The program will start out as a pilot with elements from the “Be empowered!” block. It will offer workshops, coaching and self-study activities to support you in your personal development and hone your skills for your studies and your future.
The activities and services in the other two blocks will be added gradually, provisionally from summer semester 2026 onward.
Needless to say, the program and all its activities and services are free to take part in.
Note
You will need to register if you would like to take part in the “Be strong!” study support program.
The first registration phase for winter semester 2025/2026 has ended. Registration for the program and for courses taking place during the semester break will be open again from mid-February onward. Dates for the upcoming registration phase can soon be found here.
For any questions regarding the program that you would like to discuss beforehand, feel free to contact the Office at bestrong@uni-bonn.de.
Winter semester 2025/26
Be empowered!
In the “Be empowered!” block, we offer you free workshops, coaching sessions and self-study activities to develop and improve your study skills, health, social interaction and planning for the future. These include time and self-management, learning strategies and exam preparation, all complemented by one-to-one advice. This will support and strengthen you as you build and expand your personal and interdisciplinary resources.
Summer semester 2026
Summer semester 2026 will see us add the “Well-guided!” and “Fit for your subject!” blocks to the program, thus providing activities and services that will accompany you throughout your study journey. As well as guiding you and helping you to reflect on your study choices, you will also be supported with challenges and approaches relating to your subject and helped to (further) develop both subject-specific and interdisciplinary skills and personal resources. You can pick the activities and services that best suit your individual needs, set your own priorities and get support or simply some suggestions for whatever you think will add value for yourself and your studies.
Well-guided!
The “Well-guided!” block is all about giving you insights into various degree programs and research fields, a varied selection of courses, and the opportunity for personal reflection and taking stock of your current situation. These courses and wide-ranging advisory and counseling services will help you to reflect and focus on your choice of subject and can help you prepare for a change of subject.
Fit for your subject!
From preliminary courses, bridging courses alongside your studies and interdisciplinary courses on the basics through to tailored additional services, the “Fit for your subject!” block contains courses and self-study activities to (further) develop your methodological and subject-specific skills and learn the fundamentals of your subject and techniques of academic working with the help of preliminary courses, courses on the basics and extra teaching.
Registering and signing up for courses
Keen to take part in “Be strong!” or simply get some advice for now?
You will need to be enrolled at the University of Bonn in order to join the study support program. As soon as you have enrolled, you can ask to be registered for the program using our contact form. This gives you a really easy way to
- request information or a consultation;
- ask to be registered for the program; and
- indicate your preferred courses from the program for the current semester.
Your details will go straight to the person in your faculty who deals with the program, who will then get back to you. We have explained the individual steps for you below.
Note: the program is launching as a pilot in winter semester 2025/26 with a very limited number of students from each faculty. Spaces on the courses are also extremely limited. In other words, the sooner you indicate your interest in the program, the more likely you are to get a place on your preferred courses. As described below, course registration is handled exclusively by the office.
How to request registration or indicate that you need advice:
- Fill in the contact form.
- Please make sure to indicate your preferred courses. You can find a list of all the courses on the program for the semester here.
- Spaces on the courses are extremely limited, so please rank your preferred courses in order of priority if you can.
- This will enable us to offer you an alternative if courses are fully booked.
Your inquiry will be forwarded automatically to the person in your faculty who deals with the program.
The person in your faculty who deals with the program will get in touch with you and will either confirm there and then that you have been added to the program or will be able to advise you if you have any questions about the program or to clarify what exactly you are interested in.
Once you have successfully registered, you will receive an email to your student email address confirming your registration. Likewise, we will let you know if you have been unable to secure a place for the current semester.
How the sign-up process works:
- Once you have successfully registered, the office will allocate you to the relevant courses. This will be possible again in the next registration phase, which will be announced shortly.
- Please be aware that spaces on the courses are limited. Indicating a preferred course does not entitle you to a place on it.
- You will receive an email telling you which courses you have a place on.
- All information and any materials for the courses themselves will also be emailed to you.
The office will let you know if a course is full.
Any spare spaces are allocated using a predefined procedure.
Your participation is recorded internally. The office will issue a certificate confirming your attendance at the start of a new semester or earlier if you ask them. You can find more information under “Recording attendance” below.
Recording attendance
For all University of Bonn students registered for the program, the office will record which workshops they have signed up for and confirm their attendance provided that they participated regularly and actively in the meetings. Certificates of attendance will generally be issued at the start of the new semester. For example, if you begin the study support program in winter semester 2025/26, we will issue your first certificate at the start of the following semester, i.e. summer 2026. You can also request a certificate of attendance from the office at other times if this is justified.
In the future, students are also expected to be able to count “Be strong!” courses toward their new degree program if the examination regulations permit.
In addition, the revision of the Higher Education Act of North Rhine-Westphalia (Hochschulgesetz, HG) is likely to allow an individual standard period of study to be extended under certain conditions, e.g. if additional interdisciplinary achievements are recorded. Assuming that the future legal regulation can be applied to the study support program, then an extension to the standard period of study for program participants from winter semester 2025/26 onward is expected to be possible retrospectively as well.
Contact
Dr. Anna Karin
Anna-Katharina Stelter