Till Leander Schröder: Effectively staged

Till Leander Schröder grew up sheltered in a village called Benthe, not far from Hanover and incorporated into Ronnenberg, so that he enjoyed the benefits of both rural and urban life to the full. "My parents supported me and encouraged me to do what I really wanted to do," Schröder mentions. He has often been able to observe how people are treated and how they respond to the needs of others: For example, when he worked in his mother's speech and learning therapy practice or when his father, who works in venture capital, told him about his encounters with young entrepreneurs. "I learned how important it is to show tact and build trusting relationships," explains Schröder.

Behaviors that are also required in politics and possibly one reason why Till Leander Schröder ventured into school politics at an early age. After all, he was elected class representative in the sixth grade. "I've always felt the need to change things for the better," notes Schröder. He then achieved far greater effectiveness and success as student representative and head of the student council. Together with other members of the student council, as well as teachers, he was accepted into the nationwide "School without Racism - School with Courage" network. In cooperation with Caritas Hannover, he was also co-organizer of a fundraising campaign for refugees from Ukraine.

Through his commitment, Till Leander Schröder not only maintained close contact with the school management and the state education authority, but also with local politics. He began switching back and forth between the school and local political levels when the SPD member of parliament (and current SPD Secretary General) Matthias Miersch supported his constituency in setting up a youth parliament in Ronnenberg. "It was immediately clear to me that I wanted to get involved in local politics by running for the youth parliament," reports Schröder.

He sat there as a member for two terms and also held the office of deputy youth mayor and then youth mayor. This meant familiarizing himself with a potpourri of topics in order to have a say and help shape them: Education, youth, sport, senior citizens, social affairs, equality and integration. "At first, it was a bit overwhelming to deal with local political issues and various political interests at the age of just 14," says Schröder. "But over time, I gained more and more self-assurance and self-confidence. I was able to learn a lot, but this was also due to the fact that the concerns of the young people were well received by the local councillors."

Networking meetings and a school internship in the office of Kerstin Liebelt, then an SPD member of the state parliament, led him to the Lower Saxony state parliament. After the internship, he received a request to apply for an open position as a media and public relations officer in the office of SPD member of state parliament Doris Schröder-Köpf. "The fact that I eventually got the job probably had to do with my knowledge of political processes," Schröder mentions. Because the amount of work and time required was higher in some phases, he sometimes had to deal with press or citizen inquiries in the middle of school lessons. "And yet it was a valuable time in which I was able to experience how citizen-oriented politics can succeed," explains Schröder.

Although he could have continued his work as an advisor in the MP's office, although he was offered a place on the list for the local council elections and although he was well connected and well-known in Ronnenberg, it was clear to him that he wanted to study, move away and experience something new. With a broad range of interests and an A-level average of 1.0, he was faced with a difficult choice of course that Google had to narrow down. So he asked the search engine where the best place to study International Relations was. The search result: the PAIR Bachelor at Zeppelin University. "After scouring the website, I knew that ZU was the right place for me to develop academically and personally," reports Schröder. "When I told my parents about it, they told me that an acquaintance had once studied there. In several conversations with her, the SPE Bachelor gradually emerged as the better choice for me."

But it didn't stop there. After two semesters, he switched from the SPE to the CCM Bachelor's degree. Which is surprising, because when you look back at the subjects he studied in his A-levels, you look in vain for artistic-cultural docking points: Spanish, German, politics, mathematics, education. "I was fascinated by the artsprogram and its exhibitions right from the start," explains Schröder. A Zeppelin project in which he compared various productions of Antigone, a cultural studies course with Professor Dr. Jan Söffner and a lecture by Charlotte Hüser on the topic "Untimes for art? The significance of the zeitgeist for the view of art" did the rest: "This made me realize that there are many overlaps between politics and art. Both disciplines deal with topics that move society and people, and they always try to mediate between various (ideal) ideas - they only differ fundamentally in their approach."