Across Campus to Toteninsel—MinTU Mentees on a Discovery Tour

To give our mentees a glimpse into the daily lives of students, we took them on a tour of the campus. We met at the pavilion on the South Campus. There, we were able to get a firsthand taste of what it’s like to be a student. We conducted various experiments, such as “elephant toothpaste” and a self-inflating balloon.

In the “elephant toothpaste” experiment, hydrogen peroxide breaks down very quickly into water and oxygen. A catalyst (e.g., yeast) speeds up the reaction. The oxygen produced is trapped by dish soap—this creates a lot of foam in a short amount of time.

When baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid) are mixed together, they react to form_{CO₂ (} carbon dioxide). When these two components are sealed in a bottle with a balloon, you can watch the gas build up as the balloon gets bigger and bigger. We had a lot of fun and learned something new at the same time.

Afterward, we took the H-Bahn to the North Campus. Many of us were particularly impressed by the panoramic view of the wooded area near TU Dortmund University. At the North Campus, we visited the FoodFakultät and then walked on to the seminar building. There, we also visited the Hylec (Hybrid Learning Center) and took a bit more time to look around the campus.

Overall, the campus tour was a great way to give the mentees a better sense of the university and show them what a typical day at TU Dortmund University might look like.

There was really only one thing missing from the campus tour: an actual lecture. That’s why we came up with something different for our next meeting—something that was just as interesting. We watched the movie “Die Drei ???: Todeninsal” at the University Film Club. The University Film Club offers the chance to watch new movies in a university lecture hall. This way, we were able to combine a movie night with a little glimpse into university life.

Before the movie started, we talked about the mentees’ daily school lives. Afterward, members of the radio drama club explained how “Die Drei ???” came to be. This was followed by a small raffle and a quiz about the radio drama—in which, unfortunately, we didn’t win anything.

When the movie finally started, we were able to get comfortable in the lecture hall and watch it. It was really something special to watch a movie in a university lecture hall. This allowed us to get to know yet another side of student life.