From Werkstudent to Intern to Full Time Employee
Today I want to share what working in Germany was like for me.
I experienced German working life in three different stages. I first worked as a Werkstudent while I was at university. Later, I did an internship, and after graduating, I worked as a full time employee.
One thing I noticed quite early while living and working in Germany was how much people value their personal space and private life.
If you get lonely easily and are planning to move to Germany alone, I think it is something you should be prepared for. Germany can sometimes feel quite lonely, especially when you do not have family or close friends around you.
But if you enjoy spending time alone, like having your own space, and do not want other people to be too involved in your life, Germany can also be a very comfortable place to live.
Of course, every company and every team is different. This is simply what I experienced while studying and working in Germany.
1. Working as a Werkstudent
If you are studying at a German university, one experience I would really recommend is working as a Werkstudent.
A Werkstudent is a university student who works for a company while studying. At the companies where I worked, I had to prove that I was still enrolled at university every semester by submitting my Immatrikulationsbescheinigung.
To be honest, I thought being a Werkstudent was a pretty good student job.
At least in my experience, companies did not expect the same level of responsibility from Werkstudents as they did from full time employees.
A lot of my work involved things like preparing documents, collecting data, organizing information, doing research, and making PowerPoint presentations.
If there was something I could not do, people usually did not make a big issue out of it. I was still a student, and they knew that.
But the biggest advantage was not really the money.
It was the chance to experience how a German company actually works before graduating.
I learned how meetings were organized, how people wrote emails, how colleagues communicated with each other, how tasks were divided, and how people behaved in a professional environment.
These are things that are difficult to learn at university.
Looking back, I think having that experience made it much easier for me to understand what was expected from me when I later started working full time.
These days, many companies do not want to spend too much time teaching new graduates everything from the beginning. So even a little real work experience during university can be a big advantage when you start applying for jobs after graduation.
At the companies I worked for, there was also some flexibility during exam periods.
If I had several exams, I could sometimes work less during that period and adjust my hours later when university was less busy.
That made it possible for me to study and work at the same time without feeling like I had to choose one or the other.
So if you are studying in Germany and your schedule allows it, I would recommend trying to get some company experience before graduation.
You earn money, gain experience, and start building a professional network at the same time.
2. My Internship Experience
The second stage for me was an internship, or Praktikum.
Whether an internship is required depends on the university and degree program.
Some students have to complete an internship before they can graduate. In my case, it was not mandatory at the University of Hamburg.
I decided to do one anyway.
I actually did my internship during the same semester that I was writing my bachelor’s thesis.
For me, that worked out quite well because working inside a company gave me ideas for my thesis that I probably would not have thought about otherwise.
But there is one thing I think students should be careful about.
If you want to use company data, internal processes, or information from a project in your thesis, you should always talk to the company first.
In the companies where I worked, internal information and data were taken very seriously.
Just because you worked on something does not automatically mean you can use it in your thesis.
It is much safer to check with both the company and your university supervisor before using anything.
My internship also felt very different from being a Werkstudent.
I worked from Monday to Friday and followed a schedule that was much closer to that of regular employees.
The companies where I worked had relatively flexible working hours, so people did not necessarily arrive at exactly the same time every morning.
The responsibility was also higher.
As a Werkstudent, I often felt like I was helping with smaller tasks.
As an intern, I was more involved in actual projects and had more responsibility for the work I was doing.
I think this is one of the biggest advantages of doing an internship.
You get a much more realistic idea of what working in that company would actually feel like.
The company also gets to know you.
Sometimes an internship or a Werkstudent position can later lead to a full time opportunity. I saw this happen around me as well.
For that reason, I do not think of internships as just something to add to a CV.
They can be a real way into the job market.
3. Becoming a Full Time Employee
After graduating and finally becoming a full time employee, one thing surprised me.
Working life felt much calmer than I had expected.
Of course, this depends a lot on the company, the industry, your position, your manager, and your team.
Someone working in consulting, for example, may have a completely different experience.
But in the companies where I worked, the boundary between work and private life was very clear.
People took their vacation seriously.
People went home when their workday was over.
If someone had a problem with their family or their child was sick, it was normal to adjust their schedule.
There was also very little pressure to spend time with coworkers after work.
We had company events occasionally, especially around Christmas, but I never felt that going out with colleagues after work was part of my job.
Micromanagement was also rare in my experience.
My managers were not constantly asking what I was doing every hour.
If my work was done and things were moving forward, I was mostly left to manage my own time.
I liked that a lot.
Remote work also became much more common after the pandemic.
At the last company I worked for, I could work from home throughout the week.
Going to the office once in a while was useful because you could see people and maintain relationships with coworkers, but no one was checking whether I was physically sitting in the office every day.
For someone who values freedom and personal time, this kind of working environment can be very comfortable.
But Sometimes It Was Too Calm
There was also another side to it.
Sometimes the working pace felt very slow to me.
I could finish my part of a task, but then the next person I needed might be on vacation.
Or someone might be on sick leave.
Then the whole process could simply stop.
There were definitely moments when I thought, “Why is this taking so long?”
It was also completely normal for people to take two weeks of vacation at once. Sometimes people took even longer.
If you like fast decisions, quick results, and moving directly from one task to the next, this can be frustrating.
At the same time, that slower pace is also part of the reason people have more space for their lives outside of work.
So whether you like it or not probably depends a lot on what you want from your working life.
Who Might Enjoy Working in Germany?
From my experience, the German working environment is not perfect for everyone.
If you are at the beginning of your career, extremely ambitious, and want to move as fast as possible, it might sometimes feel too slow or too comfortable.
You may want more pressure, faster decisions, and more opportunities to push yourself.
But if you have a family, want more time for yourself, or simply do not want your job to take over your whole life, Germany can be a very attractive place to work.
Working in Germany taught me something that was quite important for me.
Doing well at work does not mean that I have to remove the boundary between my life and my job and give everything I have to the company.
Looking back, I also see my time as a Werkstudent and an intern differently now.
At the time, I mostly thought of those experiences as good student jobs and a way to earn money.
Later, I realized that they were an important part of learning how to build a career in Germany.
There are some things you simply cannot understand until you experience them yourself.
For me, working as a Werkstudent and an intern was not just something to add to my CV.
It was how I learned what working in Germany actually felt like.
Note: This article is based on my personal experience studying and working in Germany. Rules around student employment, internships, working hours, vacation, sick leave, and visas can vary depending on your university, contract, company, and current regulations. If you are making a decision based on these topics, check the latest official information for your own situation.
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