Have a good time at the Student Wellbeing Days at WU

On April 8-9, 2024, the first Student Wellbeing Days will take place at WU. Life Skills, Study Skills, Rest & Recovery, Being Successful – these are the four main topics for these two days. A wide range of group activities is available for WU students – come by and join us for one of the many workshops by experts and the WU Student Counseling Team!

Your well-being is at the heart of our work

Your holistic well-being is the focus of our work within the Student Counselling Program. All our services – be it group activities or one-to-one coaching sessions – are intended to support students to feel well on all levels – mentally, emotionally and physically – and strengthen their sense of agency.

Over the semesters, we have collected the topics and concerns the students share with us and used them to synthesize them into main topics that are relevant for students throughout their university life. These main subjects are reflected in our semester focus topics as well as in the thematic structure of the upcoming Student Wellbeing Days.

Below you will find an overview of the questions, challenges and topics you can explore in our workshops:

Life skills

For us, life skills include fundamental abilities and competencies. These are relevant in all situations in life, but are perhaps particularly important and helpful in our current everyday life that is heavily influenced by partially living in a digital world. These include:

• Stress management: Dealing with stress in a healthy way: especially using breath as a simple bridge to being able to regulate your own stress level.
• Emotional self-management: What are emotions? What are feelings? And how can I use them to make good decisions on next steps for myself?
• Attention management: How can I focus on what is important to me and not be constantly distracted? This requires knowledge of what attention, focus and concentration is on the one hand, and practical tools for implementation into everyday life on the other.

Study skills

The transition from school life and the learning habits acquired there to a much more autonomous learning environment at university is not the easiest for many students. Learning has to be learned.

There are many different subject areas and skills that are crucial for successful learning:

• Knowing your own learning style and effective learning strategies well, including realistic time management.
• Having strategies on how to dedicate yourself to learning in a self-determined and conscious manner without being constantly distracted.
• Getting into the writing flow when writing seminar papers and theses and knowing which skills (from researching, citing and writing yourself) you can acquire.
• Discovering community – your colleagues and friends at university – as an important resource of mutual undestanding , support and encouragement.

Rest & recovery

We all want more rest and recovery, right!? Being rested and relaxed is not something we should consider a possible indulgence after work. It is actually the basis and starting point for being able to achieve anything at all. There are many ways in which you can integrate more rest and relaxation into your everyday life:

• Creating body awareness of how lightness (= minimum necessary muscle effort) is a parameter for successful action but also for a healthy approach in managing your energy level.
• Knowledge about the nervous system and how important a safe environment is for rest.
• Learning to use the breath as an ever-accessible resource for recovery and well-being.
• Exercise as a form of relaxation and to create a balance to mental or emotional overactivity or stress.

Being Successful

We all want to be successful in our own way, right!? But how do you know that you are on the right path and what can serve you as a guide on that path? When it comes to being successful, there are many questions, finding your own answers to them may take you one step further in your journey:

• Do you dare to follow your unique career path?
• How can you fail successfully?
• Do you have a definition of success for yourself? Or do you need a new description of what success and a happy life mean to you?
• How can you be authentic & successful?

Mini-workshops (of 90-minutes) on all these topics are available to WU students on April 8 and 9. We look forward to seeing you at the Student Wellbeing Days!

You can find an overview of all workshops and offers taking place as part of the WU Student Wellbeing Days in the current Calendar of Activities of the Student Counselling Program.