Information for Welcome Buddies

The academic success of foreign students is important to us. Because many of them will be living and studying in Germany for the first time, the University wants to provide them with the support that they need. If you have already studied in a foreign country yourself, you can appreciate the value of good support and introduction to the academic system, and life in a foreign university city during the first few weeks. Do you still remember the beginning of your studies abroad? Then you might know how exiting the first day can be, how difficult the first orientation was, and getting to know the local people. The Welcome Buddies support international students with the start of their study programme and are their first personal contact in Jena. This involves particularly going to the enrolment office (registration as well as picking up and submitting documents), registration office, bank, Studierendenwerk or to register at the University Computer Centre. In this aspect, it is important that you speak German well (at least at B1 level). As a general rule, you should also have good English skills since particularly students in the Masters programmes taught in English or also guest students come to Jena with very little or no knowledge of the German language. Welcome Buddies also help their mentees with structuring schedules and provide insights into student life in Jena. Ideally, newly arriving mentees are met by their mentors at the bus or train station and accompanied to the student residence or shared flat.

By the way, we changed the name of "arrival mentors" to Welcome Buddies in 2024, because we hope that this makes it easier for new students to accept this helpful support and reduce a supposed distance between buddies and mentees.

The Welcome Buddy programme of the International Office is available to all new international students at the University, regardless of whether they are starting with a DSH course (German Language for Admission to Higher Education), are coming to Jena for guest studies or as a degree-seeking student. The students come from all over the world and (almost all of them) speak German or English. Participation in the Welcome Buddy programme is not obligatory for students.

As a Welcome Buddy, you are mainly a contact person for the new international students and help with their arrival in Jena, the start of their studies at the university, and their first steps in Jena.

Which steps should I take care of with the mentee?

• initial contact and keeping contact
• organisation of pick-up from the train or bus station
• going along for enrolment at the International Office
• going along to sign the contract at the hall of residence
• going along to the registration office (residents' registration office)
• going along to the bank (account opening, paying the semester fees)
• support with registration at the University Computer Centre
• help with structuring the schedule
• general support with acclimatisation and orientation in Jena, and at the university, as well as help with communication difficulties
• if necessary, going along to appointments at the Immigration Office later in the semester.

Which activities are optional?

• help with registering for courses and exams

What should I not do?

• take over the entire conversation at appointments
• be a guarantor for international students
• sign contracts or the like for international students
• pass on your log-in credentials
• make financial advances

Support as required

You are a contact person/mediator and you do not need to know everything, and you should also not take care of everything. The Welcome Buddy programme of the International Office is also about helping people to help themselves, since the students should also be able to find their way as independent students and adults after the initial support. Therefore, you can always refer the students to other existing support offers and persons in the respective departments (subject-specific course guidance, Orientation days, Erasmus coordinators etc.).

Communication and limits

Please also remember that communication is essential. For example, if you cannot meet your mentee personally at the train station, it is important that you communicate this to your mentee to avoid misunderstandings and false expectations, and to help them if necessary to still find their way to their room without any problems. Of course, the same applies to other areas. Be sure to tell them clearly and explicitly what you can and cannot do. You are a volunteer mento,r not a professional, and we are very grateful for this! If it gets to be too much for you because of other responsibilities, please contact us.

The activities as a Welcome Buddy are voluntary and are unpaid. All active buddies are given a certificate at the end of the arrival period. Moreover, you can receive further intercultural training free of charge, for which you obtain a certificate of participation. We will train you for the activities and you are given an updated Welcome Buddy handbook as a guideline for each semester. You might be able to expand your foreign language skills. In any case, you will be acquainted with students from all around the world and thus gain intercultural experience. Quite often, you will also experience deep gratitude for your support. Who knows maybe you will re-discover Jena and the University in this way, and even make friends for life!

You register online here de. Please be sure to indicate when you will be in Jena (with the exact day if possible!). If something should change at short notice, feel free to write us an e-mail at any time.

As soon as we have processed your registration, you will be sent a welcome email with more information to confirm your registration (please take into consideration that that might take a couple of days). In this email, you will also be informed about upcoming dates for training to prepare you for your activities as a mentor. Please participate in one of the offered training courses. We will send you a registration link for the training courses by e-mail.

As of (the end of) August or the end of February until the beginning of the next lecture period, we will try to find a mentor for each new international student. For this, the mentee's date of arrival and your own availability at this time are the most important criteria. Only then can we try to assign you suitably according to the department and language skills. If this should not be possible, we hope that you will understand. If you are studying medicine or law, we will always only assign you to students from your department. When we have found a buddy for each mentee, we will send you both a so-called "matching email" with the contact data.

Welcome Buddy training
All buddies participate in a training course. You may (but do not have to) participate in several training courses, since the dates and procedures can change each semester. The training courses also serve buddies to get to know each other. In addition, experienced buddies can share their knowledge with new ones. The current dates can be found at the bottom of this page.

Welcome Buddy Handbook
In the Welcome Buddy handbook, you will find all the information you need for your activities. This guideline is updated each semester. In the handbook, you will also find important contact persons, addresses, and office hours. The check list right at the front is a particularly good aid since all of the steps are shown in the correct sequence. You can obtain the handbook in printed form during the Welcome Buddy training course or during office hours at our office. Apart from that, you can also download it as a PDF file from the website. We update the handbook each February and August and are grateful for your suggestions for improvement.

Newsletter
Welcome Buddies who have been active for one or several semesters and have lots of practical experience with mentoring often do not participate in the training course every semester. We recommend looking at the handbook though. And in addition, we send out a newsletter in March and September of each year. It contains the new features or changes (if necessary, also once more from the previous semester), as well as all relevant dates for the upcoming semester.

Intercultural training courses
The International Office organizes intercultural training courses which are open to all students at the University, but are particularly geared towards internationally mobile students and buddies/mentors. The training courses take place each year in April/May and in October/November. You will receive an invitation in due time. 

We generally assign two mentees per semester to each Welcome Buddy. Depending on the number of active buddies and the arriving international students, this number can vary from one to four. There was even one summer semester when we had to put off buddies for the next winter because we had more active mentors than international students who wanted mentoring. Ultimately, you must decide for yourself how much time you have for mentoring and how many mentees you think you can support. You can inform us each semester of the maximum number you can handle.

In the winter semester, the Welcome Buddies provide support for the period between the last week of September and one week after the beginning of the lecture period, and in the summer semester, for approx. three weeks around the beginning of lectures. You can expect to spend about 10 to 20 hours per mentee. However, the workload can vary widely. It starts with how many questions your mentee may have, possibly even before they arrive, or whether they are already well prepared for their stay in Jena and were able to find answers to most of their questions before contacting you. While some mentees take care of much of their business alone or were able to get a room through the Studierendenwerk without any problem, other international students have problems with finding a room, opening a bank account or other difficulties, and are then very appreciative of your support. Some things can also be taken care of as a group if you have several mentees, so that this might allow you to save time.

The enrolment is amde by submitting a proof of the semester contribution payment and address/contact form to the International Office. All details may be found on the website start-studying-international.

In the winter semester, enrolment takes place during the three weeks before the beginning of the lecture period whereas in the summer semester two weeks before the beginning of lectures. All of the required documents for enrolment must be submitted within the given deadline! You should offer help with all the ernolment steps.

Appointments at the bank, registration office or health insurance can usually be arranged before your mentee arrives, this saves time later.

Please first have a look in your Welcome Buddy Handbook. You can already find lots of information there.

The website start-studying-international gives you precise instructions on what needs to be done and considered regarding enrolment.

If you have other questions or unexpected problems, you are welcome to write us an e-mail: welcomebuddy@uni-jena.de. We will then try to answer you as fast as possible. Of course, you can also call us (+49 (0)3641/ 9 31148) or visit us during our office hours  in the International CentreExternal link.

Moreover, you can write us on Facebook, either directly to the "IB Mentorenprogramm - FSU Jena" or ask other mentors or us via our Facebook group External link.

During the enrolment period, the WelcomeCafé is also offered at the "Haus auf der Mauer", which is organised by international students who have already been in Jena for a while. The office of the mentoring programme is usually occupied during the entire opening hours of the WelcomeCafé and you are welcome to come by if you were not able to find answers to your questions at the WelcomeCafé or if you have capacities to support additional mentees. You should also talk to us if you have difficulties with your mentees.

Please note: while the mentoring programme is coordinated from the International Centre "Haus auf der Mauer", enrolment documents must be submitted at the University Main Building (Fürstengraben 1, mailbox next to room 018)! 

Please try to make contact at least two times per e-mail. If you still have not received any answer after one week or if you get an error message, and you do not have any e-mails in your spam folder, please send an e-mail with all of the information to: welcomebuddy@uni-jena.de. We will check what the problem may be and contact you again afterwards.

If your mentees are already in Jena or in Germany, please consider that they may not yet have access to the Internet, or at least not at all times, and that they may not be able to read your message, particularly in the first few days after arrival. This is especially true for students from non-EU countries. To avoid misunderstandings at this point, it is recommended to have good communication before your mentees arrive and need to be picked up. Then you can already arrange the best way to communicate in the days following their arrival.

Please write an email to welcomebuddy@uni-jena.de and inform us of this. We will then pass on the information. Please remember to informt the Accommodation Office of the Studierendenwerk, too.

We would be happy if you still want to be available as a Welcome Buddy.

Sometimes an unexpected appointment can come up. Or your mentees receive their visa later than expected and must delay their planned arrival. If you therefore cannot be in Jena for the planned date of arrival, please be sure to inform your mentees and give them instructions by e-mail, e.g. on how to get to the student residence. In some cases, it may help to recommend taking a taxi and to have enough cash for this. Otherwise, please send precise and accurate directions with links for the bus or tram schedules, instructions for the required tickets etc.

If you have the impression that picking up in person is required or if you already agreed to be there but have now been held up, you can try to ask a friend or acquaintance to pick them up for you. Some mentees also travel and arrive as a group; ask your mentee if another student's Welcome Buddy may take him along? Moreover, you can try to find other Welcome Buddies who could pick up your mentee via our Facebook groupExternal link.

If all of this does not work, please inform us as soon as possible by e-mail. We will then try to find another buddy who can pick up the international student or even take over the entire mentoring. However, please consider that at this time, the other buddies will also be quite busy. Even if we succeed in assigning the mentee to another buddy, this can possibly cause confusion.

You should definitely be in Jena shortly after their arrival and be able to meet them, otherwise you will not be able to fulfil your role as a Welcome Buddy reasonably. Please inform us immediately if your circumstances should change at short notice; ideally, always before you have been assigned to mentees.

If your circumstances should change (study programme, place of study, schedule, winning the lottery) and this might affect your participation in the programme, please inform us of this promptly: welcomebuddy@uni-jena.de. Your availability as a Welcome Buddy for the time around enrolment is important to us. If, for example, you no longer have time due to a recently confirmed internship or an unexpected illness or if you are not available for a longer period of time due to a stay abroad or the end of your studies, you should inform us of this. Thus, we can avoid having to assign mentees multiple times and making them insecure.
A change in the study programme is also of interest to us, as we try to assign you to mentees from the same or at least a similar department.

It is often the case that your mentees study different subjects than you. You must then tell your mentees that you are not responsible for academic counselling and are not able to offer this kind of help (in most cases), in order to prevent false expectations and conflicts. However, you can refer your mentees to various Universitys services. In doing so, the type of study programme of your mentee is significant:

Guest students can be referred to the Erasmus coordinator or the subject-specific course guidance for each study programme.

Degree-seeking students can also be referred to the subject-specific course guidance. Some questions can also already be answered during the Orientation Days. The subject-specific student representative committees (Fachschaft) can also often provide assistance. Furthermore, the International Office for undergraduate degree-seeking students also offers the option of subject-specific mentoring by students and lecturers from their own study programme. If you are interested in this, please read more hereExternal link.

DSH course participants should contact Mrs Cornelia DwarsExternal link.

For all fields of study, it can also be worthwhile to check if there is a group with the students of University of Jena from the corresponding department on Facebook/instagram who may be able to provide advice.

You will receive an activity certificate by e-mail after completion of your activities in May or in November. If you terminate your involvement as a Welcome Buddy after several semesters, we are happy to issue a "collective certificate" upon request. We can also send the certificate in English upon request.

Yes, supporting at least one student as part of the Welcome Buddy programme is a compulsory component of the module "My Voluntary Activities" as part of the "Career Planning Certificate Programme" (ZertiKap)External link. If you support incoming students for at least two semesters in the Welcome Buddy programme, you can even cover the complete module with the certificate we will issue as proof of this support. Please note, however, that due to the high number of new students at the beginning of the winter semester, we usually assign two mentees to each buddy.

No. In due course, generally towards the end of a semester, we will send you an e-mail asking you whether you want to be a Welcome Buddy again in the upcoming semester. If you would like to do so, simply let us know with a short e-mail. If something should change spontaneously, so that you cannot support international students or only to a limited extent, please also inform us as soon as possible in a short e-mail. If you can no longer participate or possibly only want to skip one semester, please also inform us about it by e-mail.

Simply start by maintaining regular contact with your mentees. Especially for international students, unfortunately, there are few opportunities to make contact and build long-term relationships with "local" students or students who have already been living in Jena for a longer period. Staying in contact with them can therefore already be a big step towards integration and against isolation. Particularly appointments at the Immigration Office often take place later during the course of the semester and not right at the beginningthere also, your support for filling in forms and going along to appointments is explicitly welcome.

The International Office is also happy to receive registrations for subject-specific mentoring for undergraduate degree-seeking studentsExternal link which is designed for the longer term.

Another option is to get involved in one of the student groups at the International Centre or in the Erasmus Student Network, as an event sponsor at the Welcome DaysExternal link of the International Office .