Find the right distance learning program for you

Your personal strengths determine which tasks you can easily access and quickly develop solutions for. They are made up of innate talents and skills learnt over the course of your life. For example, if you have always had an affinity for numbers but do not enjoy reading and formulating creative language, then a degree programme in business administration is far more suitable for you than a degree programme in linguistics and literature.

While the skills are hard skills, the soft skills are character traits. They determine how you behave in certain situations and how you react to your social environment. They are therefore also extremely relevant for your choice of degree programme and career. Soft skills are divided into different competences:

• Personal competence concerns how you deal with yourself, for example through self-confidence, self-reflection and self-discipline.

• Social skills describe how you interact with other people. It determines, for example, how well you can put yourself in the shoes of your fellow human beings, whether you are a team player willing to compromise or how you react to personal conflicts.

• Finally, there is methodological competence, which is closely linked to the other two areas of competence. It is responsible for the way you work and your problem-solving strategies. This competence concerns, for example, your time management, stress management skills or motivating employees, but also presentations in front of an audience or dealing with new media.

Studying and working will be easier for you if you deal with content that arouses your curiosity and moves you. This way, you are not only working to earn money, but also to improve your knowledge and skills within your field of interest. Sometimes it is not so easy to become aware of your own interests. You can explore your interests by consciously asking yourself questions such as: What could I talk about for hours? Why do I enjoy my hobbies? Where would I volunteer? This kind of self-exploration helps you to get to know yourself better and find out what really interests you.

Even if you do not yet have a specific career aspiration, you may already have some ideas about the working conditions of your future job. These preferences are important as they define your future field of work more precisely. For example, do you want to spend time in nature or in the city, do you want to travel a lot or do you value a fixed location, do you want to work with other people or do you prefer to carry out your tasks alone? A degree programme opens up or makes it easier for you to enter certain professional fields. It therefore makes sense to choose a degree programme that is geared towards professions with the working conditions you want.