Baran Küçük is only 24 years old, but he has already seen a lot.
Küçük is studying law in his seventh semester, recently started a focus on international and European law and did an internship abroad in Amsterdam until January 2020.
Until then he lived in a one-room student dorm in Cologne.
He loved walking around the campus with friends, past the stone Albertus Magnus figure on the university forecourt.
He liked the atmosphere in the university library, the slightly musty smell of the books there, studying with fellow students - "and the shared break at 12 o'clock when we went over to the cafeteria".
Nadine Bad
Editor in business, responsible for “Job and Opportunity”.
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Now Baran Küçük is back at the family table for lunch and studying in his former children's room in Stuttgart.
His sister, who is also a student, has also moved back to live with her parents.
“This is not only due to the fact that there are no face-to-face events,” says Küçük.
But above all the loneliness.
“Most of my fellow students are also at home with their parents.” In Stuttgart he has to struggle with a shaky internet connection every now and then.
“That's why you always have someone around you when you feel alone,” he says.
Like Baran Küçük, many students are currently traveling across Germany.
“There is no longer any student life worth mentioning.
That is why they move back to their parents or not even away from home, ”says Christiane Wempe.
“At least they are not all alone at home.” In addition, many have lost their part-time jobs and therefore often lack the money to earn the rent for a room.
Christiane Wempe is a developmental psychologist in Ludwigshafen;
the so-called “nestling phenomenon”, ie that adult children still live in the parental home, is one of her specialties.
"I actually wanted to move out after graduating from high school"
Even before the Corona period, she saw a trend towards moving out of home later and later - and she was critical of it. “Children stay with children in their parents' house, no matter how old they are. Conflicts are therefore programmed. ”In this way, they would only become independent later, they lacked the sense of achievement that was associated with running a household themselves, and the feeling did not arise:“ I can do it on my own ”. In addition, in this crisis the delayed moving out or retreat into the parental home was born out of necessity and often encounters an already crisis-ridden mood. "The result can be bitterness that young people feel cheated out of this really important phase of life," says Wempe.
Bitter tones can also be heard when speaking to Roberto Romeo. He is 20 years old and is studying German and philosophy in Frankfurt am Main in his first semester. “I actually wanted to move out after graduating from high school,” he reports. “But in the current phase it just doesn't make sense.” His parents are self-employed and work in the restaurant business. The crisis hit them hard. Romeo just lacks the courage to move out. "If I ever need support, my parents could hardly help me at the moment".
He had imagined his life to be completely different after graduating from high school. "I wanted to get to know a lot of new people, have a party and generally be more on my own two feet," he says. “If I lived alone, I would go shopping, do laundry, teach myself to cook. But here at home I'm a little lazy sometimes. Here it is clear that my mother will cook when she comes home. ”The study conditions in the family's apartment are not exactly ideal either. “I share a room with my twin brother. So you can never really withdraw, ”says the 20-year-old. "I often would like to have some peace and quiet."