Qualification Goals
BA and MA programmes in the humanities, such as the Master's degree in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, do not prepare students for a single, specific career goal, as is the case with teacher training programmes, for example. Instead, they provide specialised knowledge and key qualifications that open up a variety of career options.
Against this background, the Master's degree programme pursues the following educational goals:
The qualification objectives pursued in the Master's degree programme are "academic and artistic aptitude", "aptitude for qualified employment", "aptitude for social commitment" and "personal development".
The qualification objectives are described in detail in this PDF document
Research into Medieval and Early Modern Studies requires methodological expertise, sound specialist knowledge and a willingness to engage in interdisciplinary work. The Master's degree programme takes this into account by focusing on the following key concepts.
Research orientation: The compulsory area (30 ECTS) emphasises in-depth specialist knowledge and proximity to research. The courses offered here by the departments should be research-orientated and, if possible, related to a current research project. The practical module gives students the opportunity to familiarise themselves with science communication formats (conferences, exhibitions, lecture series, etc.) as well as non-university professional fields related to the subject (in publishing houses, museums, libraries, archives, etc.).
Interdisciplinarity : The willingness to work interdisciplinarily is a basic requirement of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. For this reason, the degree programme brings together 14 subjects, which feed their modules into the overall module pool of the degree programme. From this diversity, the student chooses the research modules and three specialised modules (30 ECTS) in the compulsory elective area 2 (specialised studies).
Disciplinary focus: Meaningful interdisciplinary work requires a stable disciplinary core. For this reason, (individual) disciplinary profiling forms a third pillar of the degree programme: the specialist skills acquired in the previous degree programme are continued and expanded in compulsory elective area 1: specialisation (30 ECTS) and academically deepened in the Master's thesis in the final area (30 ECTS).
The professional sector for highly qualified humanities scholars is very narrow. Academic work at a university not only requires professional excellence and stamina, but is also usually only possible for a limited period of time and is subject to strong fluctuations in demand. The result is unpredictability in life planning.
Nevertheless, the labour market offers "considerable potential for humanities, cultural and social science graduates", as they acquire key qualifications in addition to specialist knowledge during their studies, which give them good access to a wide range of fields of activity. Humanities scholars have a broad knowledge of philological and cultural methods, conceptual and analytical skills, self-organisation and communication skills as well as an awareness of historical processes and dynamics. They are not only subject specialists, but also universalists whose professional skills lie not least in their ability to familiarise themselves quickly and professionally with very different areas of activity.
The Master's degree programme contributes to the training and acquisition of such personal key qualifications and skills:
General key qualification: as an in-depth humanities education, it promotes "structured thinking and problem-orientated work, argumentation and conflict resolution skills, written and oral expression, creativity, self-motivation and willingness to learn, research skills and rapid familiarisation with new topics as well as a great deal of general knowledge"(Berufsfelder für Geisteswissenschaftler, p. 3)
Freedom of choice and personal responsibility: The Master's degree programme in Medieval and Early Modern Studies offers students a wide range of options to shape their studies according to their own interests. The specialisation and the MA thesis guarantee a stable core profile. Everything else is left to the students' freedom of choice.
Openness and flexibility: The combination of interdisciplinarity and freedom of choice poses a challenge for students in terms of subject and organisation: on the one hand, they have to deal with the content, methods and academic traditions of very different subjects and, depending on their choice of module, repeatedly familiarise themselves with new subjects. On the other hand, they are confronted with different subject cultures, administrative structures and study organisations. A high degree of openness, flexibility and self-organisation is demanded of them. The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies offers support in this regard through Ms Larissa Then, who offers weekly consultation hours for Master's students and helps with questions regarding study planning and administration.
In addition to the professional field of the specialist academic, the personal key qualifications that can be acquired or deepened in the Master's degree programme are relevant for many subject-related and subject related professional fields (for explanations, see the brochure Professional Fields for Humanities Scholars):
- Media communication and management (publishing, journalism, press and public relations, marketing and advertising, PR and communication agencies, etc.)
- Cultural industries, cultural administration and event management (Goethe Institutes, theatres, museums, exhibitions ...)
- Information management (libraries, archives, documentation centres ...)
- Foundations (research work and concept development, project management, presentation tasks ...)
- Educational and study counselling (study counselling, foundations, career services ...)
In addition, more or less non-specialised occupational fields such as adult education and special educational work, language teaching, quality testing and management, public administration, tourism, politics and policy-related areas, opinion and survey research, research work and concept development or corporate social responsibility management are also possible. More detailed information can be found in the brochure Occupational fields for humanities graduates.
