Depending on their chosen specialisation, graduates are prepared for a wide range of career opportunities, such as careers in

• public, interreligious, church and government institutions (e. g. as education officers at academies, dioceses or regional church organisations, relief organisations, political parties, foundations, etc.),
• political consulting,
• family education/adult education,
• cultural representation and promotion,
• media (e. g. specialist journals, religious or theological radio or TV features, etc.),
• scholarship and research (e. g. subsequent doctorate).

Testimonials about studying in Bamberg

Graduates of the degrees that preceded the master’s in Religious Literacy talk about their experiences as students and offer some insights into their personal career entry routes.

Sonja Bartsch

The master’s degree in “Interreligious Studies” gave me the opportunity to deepen the contents of my bachelor’s degree in Islamic studies and political science, adding an interreligious and intercultural perspective. As a result, I was prepared for a wide range of career opportunities in the cultural, political and social spheres. After graduating, I started working at the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in Nuremberg, where I am based in the Cooperation Network – Living Together Safely (KoSiZu) and the Advice Centre on Radicalisation. The KoSiZu aims to bring police officers into dialogue with Muslims nationwide as a way to strengthen trust on both sides. The Advice Centre on Radicalisation helps individuals who fear that someone in their immediate environment may have become a radical Islamist. In both areas, I can contribute a lot of knowledge and experience from my studies.

Sister Raphaela Brüggenthies OSB

The “Interreligious Studies”  degree programme offers a lot of room for pursuing individual interests. The opportunity to take an interdisciplinary approach towards a topic, and thereby discover exciting cross-connections, was a very enriching experience for me. The fact that one of my seminar papers evolved into a master’s thesis and eventually, when further questions came up, into a doctoral dissertation (topic: “Heilge Schwelle”: The early Heine - a Jewish-Christian Itinerarium) is probably just a lucky coincidence. But perhaps it represents what is special about this degree programme, which is broad and wide-ranging and leaves a lot of “leeway” for creating your own concentrations.

Susanne Lindner

Not only did I find the curriculum in the Theological Studies master’s programme interesting, I could also choose from a broad, interdisciplinary spectrum of courses. This enabled me to attend seminars and lectures in line with my own interests while also keeping prospective career opportunities in mind. I also met experts from the field who offered seminars as part-time lecturers or were invited as guest speakers. Interdisciplinarity, the associated change of perspective, and the constant struggle for a theological voice in social discourses are valuable experiences from my studies for my current professional life.

Johannes Löhlein

Since October of last year, I have been working as an education officer in the Vierzehnheiligen education and conference centres of the Bamberg Archdiocese. My focus is on issues of sustainable development and social engagement. Before that, I worked for one and a half years as a parental leave substitute for the Diocesan Council of Catholics in the archdiocese, alongside to completing my master’s thesis. In both lines of work, I found my master’s degree in “Religion and Education” to be very helpful. Especially in my current job, I benefit both from the insights I gained from my distribution electives in adult education and social education and services, and from the theological patterns of thought that enable me to illuminate and discuss topics in a broad way.

Simone Schardt

After my bachelor’s degree (major in Theological Studies, minors in Education and Classical Philology/Latin Studies), I knew I wanted to deepen my theological knowledge. The master’s programme in Interreligious Studies (now Religious Literacy with an Interreligious Studies specialisation) seemed to be a great opportunity to both focus further on Catholic theology and to relate the Christian-Catholic faith to the concepts of other monotheistic religions.

What I liked most about the master’s programme was the freedom students are given in designing their own curriculum. For example, I concentrated on courses in Islamic Studies while also attending Christian-Jewish cooperative lectures. Another definite plus for me was the opportunity to learn another language. The programme’s flexible structure thus enabled me to set individual priorities and to customise the degree to become the qualification I was aiming for.

During my master’s degree, I completed a four-week internship at the General Secretariat of the Central Committee of German Catholics in Bonn and was allowed to accompany the executive director of the Jewish-Christian and Christian-Muslim discussion groups there. Since then, I have come to think of interreligious dialogue as a strong foundation for social change, among other things. Towards the end of my studies, I was able to accept a part-time position as a consultant for interreligious dialogue in the Hildesheim diocese. My highlights there included the many opportunities for encounters between people with the most diverse backgrounds and faith experiences, which I was able to facilitate together with colleagues for target groups of almost all ages (e. g. Christian-Muslim day care centre, interreligious study days for students of Catholic, Protestant and Islamic religious studies). Last year, however, I found myself back at the University of Bamberg, where I now work for the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Human Sciences and Education and the Faculty of Humanities.

Johann Waas

The master’s degree in “Public Theology” has supported and empowered me in my desire to connect theological issues to social science discourses and to implement them in practice as small-scale “real-world laboratories”. My doctoral project, “Sketches of a Public Theology of Plenitude”, and my work at the Moravian Brethren Community in the “Sozietät Herrnhaag” residential community offer me ample opportunity for this and continue to challenge me theoretically, practically, and personally - and that is good for my faith in everyday life.