Our society is constantly confronted with new and different challenges and difficulties. Social work addresses and examines these complex processes and develops solutions, arrangements and agreements together with a large number of actors involved. The part-time degree programme in social work provides you with the skills and the necessary expertise to manage, implement and reflect on these support processes.
Social Work | Part-time Distance Learning Study Programme (BA)
Profile
Social work: study with the greatest possible flexibility
With more than 100 different fields of work, social work is a varied branch of the profession that focuses primarily on practical work. The comprehensive knowledge transfer enables you to recognise the need for action in practice and to supervise corresponding interventions and services from planning to implementation and evaluation.
Even during your studies, you can set your own accents through the targeted choice of seminars and practical projects. In addition to studying the methods and theories of social work, you will also deal with sociological, psychological, political, legal and economic principles and the use of aesthetic and digital media in social work.
The part-time social work online degree programme focuses on the greatest possible flexibility. Through learning modules provided online, you can organise your daily study routine yourself and thus combine your job, family and studies well. Individual face-to-face meetings on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam promote the exchange between students and lecturers.
Concept & Network
Is this degree programme right for me?
One of the most important prerequisites for studying social work is a strong ability to communicate and empathise, as work in the social sector often takes place on a personal level. Due to this personal closeness, tensions can arise again and again in everyday work. Here it is helpful if you can endure these and at the same time distinguish yourself. You should also be a patient person, because solutions cannot always be found quickly and successes are not always visible. A basic interest in scientific work as well as social, legal and business management issues are also good basic requirements for studying social work.
Online info event
Prior to the start of the application process, an information event on the bachelor's degree programme "Social Work | Part-time Distance Learning Study Programme" will be held via Zoom conference for those interested on 05 December 2022 from 5 to 6 pm.
The link for the Zoom conference can be requested from the degree programme coordinator Alena Kohlmann by e-mail: alena.kohlmann@fh-potsdam.de.
You bring these qualities with you
- Desire to support different people in such a way that they can help themselves
- Appreciative, respectful attitude towards all people
- Strong communication skills, empathy and patience
- Ability to tolerate tension
- Finding a balance between distance and closeness
- Interest in legal as well as business management and organisational issues
- Openness to perceive social developments
Info day (digital) for prospective students on 29th November 2023
Would you like to get to know the course content better? Take part in the info day of the part-time distance learning study programme social work via zoom – on 29/11/2023 at 6 pm!
Online Study Choice Assistant (OSA)
Would you like to find out more about the social work degree programme, get opinions and tips from students and lecturers or take a look at typical study tasks?
With the Online Study Choice Assistant (OSA), you can test whether the degree programme is right for you.

7 Questions for ... Prof. Dr. Gudrun Perko & Prof. Dr. Andrea Schmidt
With the interview series "7 Questions for ...", the BASA-online university network would like to show the faces behind the network.
Prof. Dr. Gudrun Perko and Prof. Dr. Andrea Schmidt, who together head the social work online degree programme, are interviewed.
Contact
The colleagues at the student counselling service provide information to prospective students, first-year students, parents, teachers and students on all general questions about the degree programme. If you have specific questions or concerns about the part-time distance learning programme in social work (BA), please contact the subject counselling service or the programme coordination.
Subject Counselling Service & Programme Management

Prof. Dr. Gudrun Perko
Subject Counselling Service & Programme Management

Prof. Dr. Andrea Schmidt
Programme Coordination

Dipl.-Kffr. Alena Kohlmann
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MA Social Work with a Focus on the Family | German | Winter semester | 15.05. – 22.06. (NC degree program)
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Career Prospects
Recognising, investigating, thematising – Social work
Our society is a complex web of social relationships and processes. Individuals, groups, organisations or entire districts face different challenges and difficulties. Social work recognises, examines and addresses social problems and challenges and works out solutions, arrangements and agreements together with a large number of actors involved. In the part-time social work degree programme, you will acquire additional knowledge (theories, methods, competences) on the basis of your professional experience in order to be able to recognise and justify the need for action in practice, to plan appropriate interventions and offers and to evaluate these with regard to their effect, as well as to professionally reflect on your professional practice. In addition, you will acquire research, preventive, intervening and aftercare working methods. The degree programme qualifies you for a management position as well as for an assistant management position and for coordinating, planning and evaluating tasks.
The degree and state recognition open up access to professional practice in social work and to further studies.
Possible areas of application
The part-time bachelor's degree programme in social work focuses on child and youth work, integration work, inclusion work and the accompaniment of older people, among other things. The degree programme imparts basic skills in child and youth work and prepares them for advisory, mediating or coordinating tasks for the following areas:
- Youth, social and health care institutions
- Providers of educational and training work
- Social counselling services
- Social management
- Resocialisation

State recognition
Graduates of our bachelor's degree programmes at the social and educational sciences department receive state recognition upon separate application.
The basis for state recognition is the Brandenburg social professions act. On the website of the Brandenburg State Office for Social Affairs and Supply you will find all the important information as well as the form for applying for state recognition and for the medical certificate. The fact sheet of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the State of Brandenburg summarises the documents to be submitted.
These degree programmes might also interest you
Weitere StudiengängeDegree programme | Teaching language | Start of study | Application deadline | |
---|---|---|---|---|
|
Childhood Studies and Children's Rights (MA) | English | Winter semester | 01.02. – 31.05. (free of admission)
|
|
Early Childhood Education (BA) | German | Winter semester | 15.05. – 15.07. (admission restricted)
|
|
Early Childhood Studies (MA) | German | Winter semester | 15/06 – 15/10 (free of admission)
|
|
MA Social Work with a Focus on the Family | German | Winter semester | 15.05. – 22.06. (NC degree program)
|
|
Social Management (MA) | German | Summer semester | 15/12 – 17/03 (free of admission)
|
|
Social Work (BA) | German, English | Winter semester | 15/05 – 15/07 (restricted admission)
|
|
Social Work | Dual-Digital (BA) | German | Winter semester | 15/06 – 15/09 (free of admission)
|
|
Social Work | Part-time Distance Learning Study Programme (BA) | German | Summer semester | 15/12 –15/01 (admission restricted)
|
Study Content
Course of studies
The standard period of study for the part-time Bachelor's distance learning programme in Social Work is eight semesters and concludes with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Semester 1 | Introduction to academic work and the legal areas of social work |
Semester 2 | Workshop and introduction to family, labour, existential and administrative law |
Semester 3 | Research, documentation, communication, design, creativity, presentation and introductions to social justice and inclusion/exclusion |
Semester 4 | Choice of focus and introduction to social work methods |
Semester 5 | Organisation, social work management, legal principles, project development, evaluation and social work methods, practice project |
Semester 6 | Social space, empowerment, networking, social work and business as well as crisis intervention, self-evaluation and supervision, practice project |
Semester 7 | Social work and health, social policy and work in a European and international context as well as practice project |
Semester 8 |
Ethics and professional self-concept in social work as well as profession and discipline |
- Bachelor's thesis and examination interview
- Overarching professional practice module
Teaching formats
The knowledge transfer in the part-time social work degree programme takes place in a blended learning format. The majority of the modules are made available to you digitally. You can decide flexibly when you complete the modules and how you organise your daily study routine. Furthermore, there are attendance events once a month, which extend over two days as a block seminar. The attendance events mainly serve as an introduction to the topics, reflection, research-based learning, practice and exchange among each other. Between the classroom sessions, you work through the individual modules online in self-study and are supported by our lecturers.
- Blended learning: approx. 75 % online and 25 % attendance
- 10 Classroom modules (incl. workshop and practical project)
- 17 Online modules
- Supervised mentoring during the course
- Research-based learning in a special seminar form (workshop principle) and presentation of this content
- Practical module if state recognition is desired
Study content
In the currently valid module handbooks and study and examination regulations of the social and educational sciences department, you will find the module overview, a detailed description of the modules and study contents as well as the study plan for the social work part-time distance learning study programme.
Compulsory modules (online)
- History, theoretical approaches and structure of social work
- Introduction to the legal fields of social work
- Family: A multidisciplinary introduction
- Work: A multidisciplinary introduction
- Introduction to livelihood law and administrative law
- Social Justice: A Multidisciplinary Introduction
- Inclusion/Exclusion: A Multidisciplinary Introduction
- Social Work Organisation and Management
- Family Law and Child and Youth Welfare Law in the Context of Social Work
- Project Planning and Evaluation
- Social space orientation and networking
- Economic aspects in social work
- Social work and health: prevention and health promotion
- Social policy and transnational references in social work
Electives (online)
- Introduction to the chosen field of work: children and adolescents, rehabilitation, context of generations, social work and education, delinquency, diversity, public social administration, migration and flight.
- Living environments and methods of social work
- Specific problem situations/ concepts/ crisis intervention in social work including selected areas of law
Presence modules
- Introduction to scientific work
- Introduction to social work methods
- Specific methods of social work: creativity and media education
- Conversation and counselling in social work
- Diversity: Methodological approaches in social work
- Specific social work methods in crises and conflicts
- Ethics and professional action in social work
- Profession and discipline: theories of social work and their relation to fields of practice
Theory project
In the theory project, you will discuss a self-selected question from professional practice in the form of a written, academic term paper. In doing so, you observe, analyse and interpret selected situations from practical social work and place them in the context of theoretical explanatory approaches.
Practice project
For your practice project, you are to design, implement and evaluate a change project in the context of your own professional activity. For this purpose, you will create a concept with relevant references to theory, choose the appropriate methodological approaches and finally implement your planning in a concrete practice project. Subsequently, you will present your process- and result-oriented analyses of the self-initiated and/or accompanied practice intervention.
Thesis
During the last semester, you will write your bachelor's thesis and will be accompanied in the process by a research colloquium.
Projects from the department
More projects
Communicative Appropriation of Digital Sports
An explorative analysis of chat communication in eSports using the example of the Paris Major Blast 2023
SocialGestures – Gestures as Cultural Markers: The Importance of Tact Gestures for Social Preference and Learning in Childhoos and Early Childhood in France and Germany
SocialGestures is a joint research project of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and the Université Grenoble Alpes. The project was developed jointly and is being carried out under joint responsibility. It is funded by the German Research Foundation (GR 4756/3-1).

Prison Architecture – Use of Space and Everyday Experience in a Berlin Prison
The research interest of the ethnographic study concerns the perception of prison architecture as well as the practices of space use and space appropriation by prisoners and staff in a Berlin correctional facility.

Event Series "Elternwissen" with the Healthy Kids Network Potsdam
Events for parents with infants and toddlers aged 0 to 3 years with topics about parenting and child development in the first three years of life
Attendance Dates
Overview of attendance dates
The students of the part-time and online-supported degree programme in social workreceive their learning plans for the respective semester with detailed information early on. The following schedule provides an overview of the attendance times for the programme.
Winter semester 2023/2024
Social Work (BA) 2020 and 2022
- 29/09/2023 and 30/09/2023
- 20/10/2023 and 21/10/2023
- 17/11/2023 and 18/11/2023
- 15/12/2023 and 16/12/2023
- 26/01/2024 and 27/01/2024
Social Work (BA) 2021 and 2023
- 22/09/2023 and 23/09/2023
- 13/10/2023 and 14/10/2023
- 10/11/2023 and 11/11/2023
- 08/12/2023 and 09/12/2023
- 19/01/2024 and 20/01/2024
Summer semester 2024
Social Work (BA) 2021 and 2023
- 22/03/24 and 23/03/24
- 26/04/24 and 27/04/24
- 24/05/24 and 25/05/24
- 14/06/24 and 15/06/24
- 05/07/24 and 06/07/24
Social Work (BA) 2022 and 2024
- 05/04/24 and 06/04/24
- 03/05/24 and 04/05/24
- 31/05/24 and 01/06/24
- 21/06/24 and 22/06/24
- 12/07/24 and 13/07/24
Winter semester 2024/2025
Social Work (BA) 2021 and 2023
- 27/09/2024 and 28/09/2024
- 18/10/2024 and 19/10/2024
- 15/11/2024 and 16/11/2024
- 13/12/2024 and 14/12/2024
- 17/01/2025 and 18/01/2025
Social Work (BA) 2022 and 2024
- 20/09/2024 and 21/09/2024
- 11/10/2024 and 12/10/2024
- 08/11/2024 and 09/11/2024
- 06/12/2024 and 07/12/2024
- 10/01/2025 and 11/01/2025
Summer semester 2025
Social Work (BA) 2022 and 2024
- 28/03/2025 and 29/03/2025
- 02/05/2025 and 03/05/2025
- 23/05/2025 and 24/05/2025
- 20/06/2025 and 21/06/2025
- 11/07/2025 and 12/07/2025
Social Work (BA) 2023 and 2025
- 04/04/2025 and 05/04/2025
- 25/04/2025 and 26/04/2025
- 06/06/2025 and 07/06/2025
- 27/06/2025 and 28/06/2025
- 18/07/2025 and 19/07/2025
Application & Contact
At a glance
The most important deadlines, dates and admission requirements for the part-time distance learning programme in social work (BA) are compiled here. In the next section, you will find out which steps you need to take for a successful application.
Deadlines & Dates
- 29 November 2023: Info day
- until 15 January: register and submit online application
- until 15 January: apply for a higher semester to continue a degree programme you have started at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
- Note: Selection interviews will take place in the 5th calendar week (29.01.24 - 02.02.24) (per ZOOM). Please plan for this should you receive an invitation.
Access requirements
- General university entrance qualification according to the Brandenburg university act: General university entrance qualification or entrance qualification for studies at universities of applied sciences or previous professional training recognised as equivalent.
- Work experience in the field of social work of at least 15 hours per week during the course of study.
Time requirement & costs
- Have 25 hours per week to study
- Regular semester fee
- 65.00 euros per online module
- Travel, accommodation and catering costs for the attendance days
This is how you apply!
In the following, we explain to you which aspects you should pay attention to from the registration for the central allocation of study places to the matriculation (enrolment).
Further information
The following links provide you, and especially international applicants, with further information on the topics of application and enrolment at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

International applicants
You would like to apply for studies from the first or a higher semester and have acquired your school-leaving qualification and/or university degree abroad? Then you can have degrees and achievements acquired abroad recognised and study with us.

Application & Enrolment Procedure
The application and study service provides information and advice on general questions regarding the application process, admission and enrolment at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, application for a higher semester, but also on topics such as compensation for disadvantages, part-time studies, waiting semesters and hardship applications.
Application & Enrolment University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Contact & Services
The student counselling service provides information and advice on general questions about the degree programme as well as on topics such as choosing a degree programme, application, enrolment and study organisation.
For subject-specific questions about module content, credit transfer, examinations or specialisations in the part-time distance learning programme in social work (BA), the subject counselling service or programme coordination is the right place to go.
Subject Counselling Service & Programme Management

Prof. Dr. Gudrun Perko
Subject Counselling Service & Programme Management

Prof. Dr. Andrea Schmidt
Programme Coordination

Dipl.-Kffr. Alena Kohlmann
Department of Student Affairs
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