advisor is the soft skill program for studentds of TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology . Within this program, students of higher semester - the advisors - propagate their knowledge on various soft skill topics (e.g. project management, conflict management, public speaking, effective communication) to freshmen - the advisees. With this knowledge the advisees are faced an electrical engineering project, which they have to tackle on their own in the adjacent semester.
In the winter semester, small groups will attend workshops organized and held by students of higher semesters (advisors). Soft skill topics such as rhetoric, feedback or stress management play a central role within these sessions. During the winter term, the advisee team develops a project plan tackling a dedicated electrical project and present it to a jury consisting of professors and TUM-employees. Based on the feedback of the jury, the project plan is refined by the teams. In the following summer semester, the focus is on the realization and implementation of the project plan into practice. At the end of the summer term, all teams will present their results at a public final event and let their projects compete against each other.
The workshops take place weekly in the first semester. We try to offer two different workshop appointments on each working day. At the kickoff meeting you opt in for any of the appointment dates. This date remains the same during the whole semester and also determines the grouping. Unfortunately, we can only take lectures and central exercises into account when offering appointments.
In the first semester you visit the weekly workshop. In addition, you create an individual project plan together with your advisee group, which you will present at the end of the first semester.
In the second semester you implement your project. Commonly, these tasks are tackled in self-organized group meetings. Additionally, five meetings (including 3 milestone meetings) with your advisor support your project progress.
During the winter semester, the advisors organize and carry out workshops on topics from the field of soft skills for their advisee group. In order to be prepared for this, all advisors are trained beforehand by two professional coaches within seminars.
In the summer semester each advisor accompanies his/her group during the realization phase of their project. In addition to the group support, every advisor has to take care of an individual area of responsibility concerning the whole advisor program. Examples include the areas PR and program coordination. During an advisor year, various events have to be organized, such as kickoffs, an advisor generation meeting or the final event. The advisors are responsible for the realization and organization of those events.
As advisor one attends 4+1 seminars. A rough guide is given below:
- Module I: Right before the start of the lecture period of the winter term (4 days)
- Module II: On a weekend right at the begin of the winter term (3 days)
- Module III: Before the start of the lecture period of the summer term (4 days)
- Module IV: On a working day during the summer semester (1 day)
- PM-Seminar: On a Saturday in November (1 day)
The module "advisor Training" corresponds to a workload of 6 ECTS, which can be applied as "Fächerübergreifende Ingenieursqualifikationen" (interdisciplinary engineering qualifications) during bachelor studies. Thus advisor alone covers all the required credits within this module.
In the master's program, advisor's 6 ECTS can be applied in the module "Außerfachliche Ergänzung", if it has not been applied during the bachelor studies.