Here, participants in the Voluntary Scientific Year (FWJ) report on their experiences in the University Archives at the University of Oldenburg.

Why did you decide to do a Voluntary Scientific Year?

Chantal: After leaving school, I was still unsure which academic appointment I wanted to take. Initially, I thought about starting an apprenticeship straight away, but in the end I decided to do a voluntary year first in order to get my bearings and gain new experience. That's when I came across the position at the university.

Fenja : I haven't had many points of contact with academic work in my environment so far, so I'm doing the academic year to prepare for my studies and gain an insight into everyday life at university.

Where are you employed and what are your areas of responsibility?

We are working in the University Archives. Our tasks are mainly in the area of cataloguing and packing documents. We also digitise and were allowed to create our own exhibition in collaboration with a colleague. This included research, writing exhibition texts and designing the display case. We also had the opportunity to support KIBUM and take part in several archive conferences.

Why are you doing your voluntary service at the University of Oldenburg of all places?

Fenja: I've always been interested in history and the FWJ position in Oldenburg was a perfect fit. Generally speaking, not many universities offer the FWJ and then it's usually jobs in the natural sciences that didn't appeal to me.

Chantal: I decided to do my voluntary service at the university because I have a great interest in history and especially in working with historical sources. History was already one of my favourite subjects at school and I took the advanced course, which deepened my interest even further. During my time at school, I particularly enjoyed analysing and interpreting sources and I wanted to see whether this work might be something for my future.

What challenges have you faced so far?

Fenja: Since I moved out for my FWJ, it was a challenge to get used to all the changes, especially at the beginning. I had a few months off after my A-levels, so the 40-hour week was quite exhausting at first, especially in combination with running my own household.

Chantal: Even though I really like working life, it was still unusual to work 40 hours a week at first. I also had to learn to act more independently and possibly leave my comfort zone in some respects.

What surprised you positively?

Fenja : My super nice environment here at the archive surprises me every time. Chantal is a really great colleague and I enjoy spending my day with her. In addition, our wishes are very well catered for and we are fully integrated into the team. I was also surprised that we can go to conferences and take part in internal university training courses.

Chantal : Many positive things surprised me. Above all, how much responsibility you are allowed to take on yourself. I wouldn't have thought that I would be given my own tasks so early on and be able to actively contribute to the development of materials. Another positive aspect is the collaboration with the archive staff. The working atmosphere is very collegial and I was always able to ask questions or learn new things. And of course I was also very pleased to meet Fenja, she definitely makes everyday working life even better. :)

What have you learnt so far during your voluntary service?

The voluntary service has definitely helped us to become more independent. We are learning a lot about working life, but also about ourselves :-)

Why did you decide to do a Voluntary Scientific Year?

Scientific work was always something quite distant for me. Of course you have a certain idea of how scientists work, but somehow you only have a very small idea of what it's like. As I originally wanted to work in a laboratory, I was looking for a job after leaving school that didn't require me to do an apprenticeship or just a short internship. That's how I found out about the scientific year.

Where are you employed and what are your areas of responsibility?

I currently work in the University Archives. Our task is to present the history of the university as well as possible and also to make the university's records accessible for research (as far as possible). We have both legacies and estates of former professors, documents from the time of the University College of Education, minutes of departmental councils and commissions, etc.

My tasks are wide-ranging. At the moment I am digitising the old documents of the University of Teacher Education on a really high-quality book scanner. I recently finished the Wolfgang Schulenberg estate, which I first had to index (enter into Arcinsys, an archive information system) and then repackage (first demetallising and then packing into acid-free envelopes/boxes). As I have very strong interests in the natural sciences, we have also started to sift through the documents in the individual Institutes in School V - School of Mathematics and Science and then process them later in the archive. I will soon be going to the home of a deceased professor for the first time to look through his documents on site. From time to time I am also sent on business trips all over Germany, for example on topics such as: Digital long-term archiving or our contemporary witness project, which we are also working on at the moment.

Why are you doing your voluntary service at the University of Oldenburg of all places?

To be honest, I wasn't planning to come to Oldenburg. I had applied for FWJ positions in the laboratory in Hanover, which I didn't get in the end. However, as I really wanted to do the academic year, I applied for the last vacancy here in the University Archives. It may not be my actual career prospects, but I still enjoy working here!

What challenges have you faced so far?

The biggest challenge for me is probably willingly working in an area that is not what I want to do later as an academic appointment. I don't find it difficult to work here, as I have a wide range of interests, but I still sometimes imagine what it would be like to have a job in the lab. For a while I wondered whether I wasn't actually wasting time at the moment. But as I'm allowed to attend all the courses and lectures on my chosen degree programme (environmental sciences) on the side, I know for sure that this is the right thing to do. I have enough time to really decide what I want to study later.

What do you think this year will bring you?

This year is a year off before the stress of studying starts again. I made a conscious decision to take a year off to simply get away from all the stress of my A-levels. I can get to grips with my degree programme, get used to northern Germany and plan the financing of my studies in more detail. I probably wouldn't have been able to do all that so quickly straight after leaving school.

What have you learnt so far during your voluntary service?

The voluntary service has taught me a lot. What it's like to have your first real job (working eight hours a day, being employed at a university, having a real job for almost a year), living alone, moving to a different part of Germany (as I'm originally from southern Germany). Of course, I also learnt some skills at work, including some soft skills, for which we also had an extra seminar day.

What advice would you give to future volunteers?

You can only take something away from this year. If you have the opportunity, do a voluntary service. In this one year, you can get to grips with the topic of the future. We also had days in the compulsory seminars where we learnt more about study orientation and financing. You can make great use of the year to look into a new academic appointment (or your dream job later on), to think about what you want to do later on, but you can also simply attend lectures or courses at the university. Take advantage of the opportunities you have at the university when you are here. You can really only benefit from it.