Your Professors Are Your First Network
Most students treat professors as a transaction: show up to lecture, take the exam, move on. That habit quietly closes off one of the most useful networks available to a student, often before any internship or job search even starts.
A Network You Don't Have to Cold-Email
Building a professional network from scratch usually means reaching out to strangers who have no reason to reply. Professors and institute staff are different: they're already reachable through office hours, seminars, and email, and they already have a reason to talk to you, because you're their student. That access is easy to waste and expensive to rebuild later.
Where Hiwi Jobs Come From
Many student research assistant positions, Hiwi-Stellen, never get posted publicly. They go to whoever the professor or a research assistant already thinks of when a need comes up, which is almost always a student who asked a sharp question after class or showed up to office hours with something more than "can you explain the last lecture again." Being visible as engaged, not just present, is what puts a name on that list.
Asking for a Praktikum Connection Without It Feeling Transactional
The approach that works is rarely a direct ask. It's showing genuine interest in a professor's research area, asking what they're currently working on, and letting the conversation reveal whether there's an industry collaboration worth knowing about. A professor who sees real curiosity will often offer a contact unprompted. One who gets a cold request for a connection in the first email rarely does.
A Thesis Topic Can Be a Foot in the Door
Choosing a Betreuer attached to an industry-connected research group, rather than picking the first available topic, can turn a thesis into something that doubles as an introduction to a real company. It's worth asking, before committing to a supervisor, whether their group has ongoing collaborations and what past students went on to do.
A Few Concrete Moves
- Go to office hours with a real question, not only once something has already gone wrong.
- Ask about ongoing research, and whether any assistance is currently needed, before a position is ever advertised.
- Pick seminar topics that reflect a genuine interest, so a professor has a reason to remember you specifically.
- Ask advisors directly, closer to thesis time, whether they know of Praktikum or Werkstudent openings worth applying to.
A reference that carries weight later doesn't start with a well-written email during job search season. It starts with being a student a professor remembers for the right reasons, long before that search begins. Laying that groundwork early is part of what GSA Career™ helps students do.