Always interested in new questions

Committed, open, versatile – and always looking for the next opportunity. This is how Adina Krauß is as a person and a student. She thanks the Deutschlandstipendium for this.

Born near Cologne, she grew up in Rheinland-Palatinate, worked as an au pair and international intern in Spain, studied in Baden-Württemberg and is now at Kiel University working on her Master's degree in Migration and Diversity. So far, in her 29 years, Adina Krauß has not only started out on a lot of ventures, she's also successfully completed them. What is all the more remarkable about this is that she has always connected these chapters of her life with involvement in the world around her.

All of this makes the young woman an ideal candidate for the Deutschlandstipendium, which also recognises achievements that cannot be expressed in points and grades but bear fruit in society. "It has really helped me a lot," said Adina Krauß, who has been considered for the scholarship for the second time for her Master's degree at Kiel University. She had previously enjoyed this support from her university during her Bachelor's degree in Social work in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart.

The cosmopolitan resident of Rheinland-Palatinate moved to Kiel because the Master's degree in Migration and Diversity is "only available in this format here." In any case, this degree programme hits almost one hundred percent on what Adina Krauß is passionate about. It offers her the opportunity to focus on Islamic Studies of the Near East and expand her existing Persian language skills in the linguistic part of the degree at the same time. "I have found these topics fascinating for a long time," stressed the student, who submitted a thesis on Islamic feminism for her Bachelor's degree.

What fascinates her about the complex above all else is its associated multi-facetedness. "It is not possible to understand Islam as a religion per se as everyone interprets it differently," she stressed. On top of this, the fact that this is very similar to the linguistic and political backgrounds in the Near East and that – especially from a western European perspective – every new discovery leads to even more new questions makes Adina Krauß even more interested.

And so she has resolved to learn as much of interest as possible in this time. Her Master's thesis focuses on anti-Muslim racism, in other words, the phenomenon of people being discriminated against because they believe in Islam or even just look as though they would. And as is the way with Adina Krauß, she is taking this subject beyond the bounds of the campus. She is working on a podcast project on anti-Muslim racism for the Neumünster-based Sozialdienst muslimischer Frauen (social service for Muslim women). In Kiel she is involved in the initiative ALL IN, which deals primarily with antisemitism and racism.

Adina Krauß could well see herself making a career out of political education in this sense in the future, if not for her interest in acting, which she has yet to explore fully. "But perhaps that can all be interlinked too," said the versatile student, who will have the opportunity to set out in another new direction after she has completed her degree in spring 2022.

Author: Martin Geist