participants and coordination team 2005/2006

Mentoring program for female beginners at the Faculty of Informatics

The big sister.first steps program was inspired by the Big Sister/Little Sister program at the School of Computer Science of Carnegie Mellon University. The purpose of the big sister.first steps program is to provide guidance and support to beginners. We create pairs between beginner "little sisters" and "big sisters", who are students from later semesters.

The big sister / little sister relationship is intended to serve as a way for first year students to get to know successful female computer science students. They experience them as role models, and can ask them for advice during their first semester at univeristy. Furthermore, the program encourages big sisters to share their experiences and perceptions of computer science. The pilot project in 2005 was carried out with seven pairs.

Internal project coordinator is Ulli Pastner. External trainer for the group meetings is Bettina Holzmann, who studies psychology and has an outdoor-pedagogical approach. The students meet three times as a group. First there is a kick off meeting with information, reflection on objectives, and matching of pairs. Then there is a meeting after a few months to exchange views, and the third meeting is at the end of the semester to end the project and say goodbye. During the semester, the pairs of little and big sisters meet regularly in a more informal setting.

Photos from the first group meeting (October 2005):
Photos from the last group meeting (January 2006):
The sisters receiving their certificates (March 2006):

The project was also continued for the new little sisters in 2006 and 2007 (documentation only in German version).

this page is maintained by Ulli Pastner