Alumni open doors: An evening at the Bavarian State Chancellery

MWP alum­nus Dr. Lud­wig Lenzgeiger, advi­sor to the State Chan­cel­lery's man­age­ment team, invit­ed the schol­arship hold­ers to the im­pres­sive build­ing at Franz-Josef-Strauß-Ring 1 as part of the “Alumni öffnen Türen” se­ries. After an im­pres­sive tour—from the Or­an­gery to the Cabi­net Room and the Dome Room—the partic­ipants not only gained an archi­tec­tural in­sight, but also a vivid pic­ture of eve­ryday politi­cal life at the heart of Ba­varian state poli­tics. 

In the sub­se­quent dis­cussion, Lud­wig Lenzgeiger gave a descriptive ac­count of his work in the man­age­ment team and the di­verse tasks that ac­com­pany daily politi­cal deci­si­on-mak­ing – from con­tent prepa­ration and coor­dina­tion pro­cesses to the im­portance of com­muni­cation and teamwork. He was sup­port­ed by Maja So­phie Klimaschewski, alum­na of the Ger­man Aca­demic Scholarship Foundation and per­sonal advi­sor to Ba­varian Minis­ter Presi­dent Dr. Markus Söder, who also pro­vided valu­able in­sights into her eve­ryday pro­fes­sional life and her expe­rienc­es in the politi­cal lead­ership envi­ron­ment.

Our schol­arship hold­ers took the op­por­tunity to ask many inter­esting ques­tions and gain their own im­pres­sion of the work be­hind the scenes at the State Chan­cel­lery through direct ex­change. This led to a fas­cinat­ing dia­logue about re­spon­sibil­ity, deci­si­on-mak­ing pro­cess­es, and the role of scien­tific per­spec­tives in poli­tics. 

Isa­belle Bay­reu­ther, schol­arship holder at the Uni­versi­ty of Re­gens­burg: "In addi­tion to the excit­ing stories about the histo­ry of the State Chan­cel­lery, I found the con­versa­tion with Maja So­phie Klimaschewski and Dr. Lud­wig Lenzgeiger par­ticu­larly en­riching. They shared their per­sonal expe­rienc­es of the appli­cation pro­cess and their cur­rent eve­ryday work with us, which gave us a better idea of the re­quirements. As a law stu­dent in par­ticu­lar, this quick­ly made me en­thusi­astic about a ca­reer in the State Chan­cel­lery."

"What I took away from the even­ing was that the pro­fes­sion of civil serv­ant can be very di­verse and that alt­hough ‘ad­min­istra­tion’ doesn't sound par­ticu­larly attrac­tive, you still get to work on many great tasks – es­pe­cially when you work with well-known public fig­ures. I was also im­pressed by the enor­mous com­mit­ment of our two speakers and the in­sights into Markus Söder's work­ing hours and daily rou­tine," said Mag­nus Zenker, a schol­arship holder at Mu­nich Uni­versi­ty of Ap­plied Sci­ences. 

A big thank you to Dr. Lud­wig Lenzgeiger and Maja So­phie Klimaschewski for their time, open­ness, and inspir­ing ex­change – an even­ing that showed how vi­brant the Max We­ber Pro­gram net­work is and how valu­able con­tact be­tween alum­ni and cur­rent schol­arship hold­ers can be.

The “Alumni Open Doors” se­ries thrives on the com­mit­ment of our for­mer stu­dents. If you would like to make your work envi­ron­ment, your field of re­search, or your com­pany acces­sible to schol­arship hold­ers, the alum­ni team of the Max Weber Program would be de­light­ed to hear from you. Every door that is opened opens up new per­spec­tives and en­coun­ters – and strengthens the cohe­sion of our alum­ni com­muni­ty.

Text: Mylène Wienrank and Svenja Üing, Max Weber Team