How much weight can the fingertips hold? How voluminous does a grip have to be to just be able to cling to it? These are questions that Martin Henning passes on to participants in his university climbing courses - always with the addition of "try it out! Just try it!" He himself is a student of electrical engineering and, in a way, came to the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg through climbing. At the time, he was attending 8th grade at the nearby Steenbeck Gymnasium. He was immediately in his element when it came to climbing and now came to training every week. Eventually, he got so good that he was able to give classes himself - even for kids. His youngest participant this semester is four years old and always enthusiastically calls out "Martin, Martin, look!" when he makes it to the top again. "I took over the children's climbing four years ago and really enjoy doing it, even though it is sometimes difficult and the responsibility is high. It's nice to watch the kids and their parents get excited about my favorite sport, too."

While many of his young and old course participants are often coming into contact with this sport for the first time, the seven-meter-high climbing wall is already no longer enough for him. So Martin Henning is increasingly drawn to the bouldering room in the university sports hall or directly out into Saxon Switzerland. With the goal in mind of getting better and better at climbing in the mountains, he is also redesigning the garden at home in Drebkau: There, the old children's swing set is being converted into a training wall with a hand-over-hand route, and in the workshop he is fine-tuning finger boards with various handles to train his finger strength. "My father is a carpenter and taught me a lot of things. It started with us always building smoking men at Christmas. We have more than enough of those now, so we had to come up with other ideas."

The idyllic spot in the country right next to the forest makes him happy, and so the 21-year-old, who is close to home, would also like to stay in the region after graduation. He already has his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering almost in the bag and would like to complete his master's degree directly afterwards - also at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. "What I particularly like here is the good support. The electrical engineering program is quite demanding, but I really enjoyed the various modules, such as those from the fields of power engineering and energy supply. Math, on the other hand, lives up to its reputation as a bouncer - I had to invest a lot of time in exam preparation. That showed me once again that hard work pays off." Next on the agenda is the three-month mandatory internship. Martin Henning already started working on this some time ago and made initial contacts with potential companies at the campus-X-change recruiting fair.

If everything works out, he will start his master's degree next winter semester in order to prepare himself optimally for his professional life - then he will aim for a job in the renewable energy sector. Until then, he is financing his livelihood with an exciting part-time job, for which you have to be brave and free from giddiness: While other students are waitressing, tutoring or working as assistants at the university, Martin Henning is rappelling down slab buildings and sealing joints and cracks to keep the cold and water out.

The electrical engineering program is offered at the BTU as a bachelor's and master's degree program. In addition, there is a dual study program over seven semesters.