Prof. Dr. Christina Carlsen: I’ve always had young people in my teams; it’s a pleasure to work with them. As an assistant professor at the university in Istanbul, I realised that I also enjoy teaching. But I didn’t think it was the right time to swap. My remit in the energy sector was both absorbing and interesting, I was a divisional manager, reporting directly to the Executive Board, so I was able to actively help shape the company, and there were also opportunities to spend time abroad. Most recently I worked for RWE in Chicago. But I also realised that the window of opportunity for a professorship would close at some point and that I wanted to settle down. When I saw that HTW Berlin had put out a call for applications, I applied immediately, not wanting to pass up such a great opportunity. A university with a great reputation, the right city for private reasons, and then a professorship specialising in corporate finance! Everything fitted together.

I started in May 2023, in the middle of the summer semester, so with a reduced number of weekly study hours. Fortunately, there was also a short grace period from an academic perspective: the special thing about my professorship is that I also “export” courses to another faculty. However, at the time I started at HTW Berlin, these courses were undergoing radical changes - the degree programmes were being fundamentally revised as part of an accreditation process. I am therefore very grateful to my predecessor for remaining loyal to the university as a lecturer and, together with two other lecturers, supervising these subjects until the old study regulations expired. This gave me the opportunity to get involved in the revision and updating of the content, and I will be taking over the subjects when the new study and examination regulations come into force.

Yes and no. Presenting topics and information has always been part of my professional career. I also have experience in with working with young people. After a year, there are two points on my to-do list when it comes to teaching. Firstly: more storytelling. At the moment, my focus is still very much a theoretical one, because I am convinced that students need to understand the fundamentals. However, I also believe that more practical examples from industry are required, and that the theory needs to be packaged differently. A kind of theoretical toolbox might be useful! 

Secondly, I have learnt not to see the students as a more or less homogeneous team like in a company. They all have different reasons for taking my courses. I start my seminars by asking the following question:  why are you here and what do you want to learn? In the Bachelor’s degree programme, the answer is often “to pass the exam”. So the exam is the proverbial carrot, which is why, for example, I allow you to use a cheat sheet in A4 format that you have written yourself. Some students work on this cheat sheet for so long and so intensively that something is bound to stick. Incidentally, two other answers are “learn how to use Excel” and “get rich quick”. Some people already seem to have a trading strategy and are studying to make big money at some point. Unfortunately, I cannot promise the latter. The Master’s degree programme focuses more strongly on content. However, be it Bachelor or Master, I have the pleasure of teaching many excellent and also very self-confident students. I'm always amazed at how many people already have both feet firmly on the ground. I like that.

I teach 18 weekly study hours. Now, in winter, I’m teaching the basics of investment and finance to two groups of prospective economists over four weekly study hours each. I spend a further four weekly study hours specialising in investment and finance, also as part of the Bachelor’s degree programme in Business Administration (BWL). And then I also complete six weekly study hours of teaching in the Master’s degree programme in Finance, Accounting, Corporate Law and Taxation (FACT).

The balance will shift in summer 2025. I will then also offer other courses, initially in the new Master’s programme in Quantitative Finance and Data Science. When the new study and examination regulations come into force, the Bachelor’s degree programme in Business Mathematics will also be added. These two degree programmes are part of the School of Computing, Communication and Business and are based on our second campus.

That’s right. I am part of the six-member expert group in investment and finance, which contributes its expertise to various degree programmes. In my case, these are currently the Business Administration and FACT degree programmes at Faculty 3, HTW Berlin Business School. One colleague is responsible for coordinating the courses within the expert group and also ensures that everyone has a relatively equal workload. We stand in for each other when necessary. I really appreciate the collegial atmosphere, we help each other with questions and problems, and we also meet privately once a semester.