The Max Weber Program celebrates its 20th anniversary with a grand Alumni Day in Munich

Brass music and wel­com­ing shouts echo through the large en­trance hall of the Facul­ty of Me­chani­cal Engi­neer­ing at the TU Mu­nich. Groups of alum­ni stand to­gether eve­ry­where, talk­ing and laugh­ing. The Max Weber Program has invit­ed guests to its first major alum­ni day, and around 300 for­mer schol­arship recip­ients have taken the op­por­tunity to meet up again. All MWP co­horts were repre­sent­ed among the guests, from the first grad­uates to those who grad­uated this fall. Some of the guests trav­eled long dis­tances to visit Ba­varia, com­ing from places such as the UK, Swit­zer­land, Du­bai, Israel, and the US. The joy of reun­ion in Mu­nich was great. “I am most excit­ed to meet old ac­quaintances again and get to know new faces at the same time. The Alumni Day is a great op­por­tunity to be in­spired and to expe­rience the spirit of the Max We­ber Pro­gram anew,” said MWP alum­na Dr. Mari­na Hüb­ner, who was sup­port­ed by the MWP until 2013 and is now a senior gov­ern­ment offi­cial at the Fed­eral Minis­try of Fi­nance.

Twen­ty years after its founding, the MWP now has more than 6,000 alum­ni. Bring­ing many of them to­gether in Mu­nich to look back, share expe­rienc­es and mem­ories, and make plans for future activi­ties was the goal of the Mu­nich Alumni Day. There were many good op­por­tuni­ties to do so: dur­ing the wel­come coffee and photo shoots at the MWP photo booth, as well as in three offi­cial ex­change rounds in which the alum­ni – divid­ed ac­cord­ing to their for­mer place of study, cur­rent place of resi­dence, or cur­rent pro­fes­sional field – en­gaged in con­versa­tion with each other and remi­nisced about their own time as schol­arship recip­ients.

The Alumni Day was orga­nized pri­marily by for­mer and cur­rent schol­arship recip­ients. Anni­ka Böh­ler, Caro­line Kleine-Besten and Cos­mo Hank mod­erated the event pro­fes­sionally and en­thusi­as­tical­ly. Musi­cal high­lights were pro­vided by Jan Kö­nig, Kris­tina Pau­lini, Clara Siegle, Kathrina Strepp, Paul­ine Wit­tig, and Tom Weißhuhn: with jazz, classi­cal music, elec­tro-pop, and brass music, there was some­thing for eve­ryone. Cur­rent and for­mer schol­arship recip­ients of­fered a very per­sonal in­sight into their time at the MWP, with pairs taking to the podi­um to talk about MWP en­coun­ters that had a par­ticular im­pact on their lives. 

The focus was on inspir­ing en­coun­ters made possi­ble by the MWP. To­bias Vogl and Paul Alavi Dehkordi re­port­ed on their ex­change be­tween men­tor and mentee; Joa­chim Wutt­ke and Kathrin Zabel re­called the mo­ment in 2014 when they founded the asso­cia­tion “Alumni and Friends of the Max We­ber Pro­gram” to­gether with other alum­ni. 

En­coun­ters like these, as be­came clear dur­ing the Alumni Day, make MWP alum­ni feel con­nect­ed to the pro­gram even after their fund­ing period has end­ed. MWP alum­ni have taken very dif­ferent paths in life and ca­reer. What con­nects them, how­ever, is summed up with a wink by alum­nus Chris­toph Hel­big, MWP grad­uate class of 2013 and now chair of Eco­logi­cal Re­source Tech­nolo­gy at the Uni­versi­ty of Bay­reuth: "MWP schol­arship recipi­ents are like Ba­vari­ans: lap­tops and leder­hosen, Mo­zart and may­poles, sci­ence and spaetzle. We can com­bine being elite with being down-to-earth. And that's exact­ly why con­versa­tions with MWP alum­ni are al­ways so en­joya­ble."

The MWP launched in 2005 as a spe­cial col­la­bora­tion be­tween the State of Ba­varia and the Ger­man Aca­demic Scholarship Founda­tion. Under the um­brella of the Elite Net­work of Ba­varia, the MWP, which is ad­minis­tered by the Studienstif­tung, sup­ports an aver­age of 1,750 tal­ented stu­dents at Ba­varian uni­versi­ties each year. In 2005, the first 285 schol­arship hold­ers were ac­cept­ed, and since then around 400 new stu­dents have been added each year. The schol­arship hold­ers re­ceive a lump sum for edu­cation and bene­fit from a wide range of pro­grams: from acad­emies and lan­guage cours­es to career in­sights and soft skill semi­nars to con­fer­ences on cur­rent scien­tific or social top­ics. They also re­ceive finan­cial sup­port for stays abroad as well as pro­fes­sional and per­sonal ad­vice. 

Many MWP alum­ni re­main con­nect­ed to the pro­gram even after their fund­ing has end­ed. Many alum­ni regu­larly serve as selec­tion com­mittee mem­bers, lec­turers at acad­emies and con­fer­ences, men­tors, and pro­vide in­for­mation for schol­arship recip­ients, such as invita­tions to their own work­places or digital dis­cussion groups on career paths. 

Text: Svenja Üing, Max Weber Program