With the money she earned there, she then financed the family while her husband studied technology at the universities of applied sciences Niederrhein and earned his degree. In the early 1990s, she then took courses in art and design herself as a guest student at the universities of applied sciences Niederrhein with Waltraut Zaiser. As a drawing instructor, Waltraut Zaiser was known for her spontaneity and knew how to amuse the students when she let out a loud scream in the middle of the course because she had noticed that she had forgotten her book on the train. She took her students to the zoo to draw, invited dancers and nude models to the class. And on Tuesdays, there were fresh green herrings from the market to use as models. "You can do it, girl!" was then the statement that led Marion Maas, who had always drawn, to consider studies. Only, unfortunately, she didn't have a high school diploma. "Neither do I!" was Waltraut Zaiser's response. Unfortunately, Waltraut Zaiser died in 1992, and fellow students simply took Marion Maas to a course taught by Stephen Coon Weeks. At the end of the semester, she produced a portfolio of drawings for evaluation - just like a regular student. And her university teacher / lecturer asked for her routing slip, the so-called yellow slip, for the evaluation, and then learned that Marion Maas wasn't registered at all, which prompted him to say, "If you want an A, you have to register."
That's what Marion Maas did. She made up for her Abitur at night school, first at the Abendrealschule in Krefeld and then at the Abendgymnasium in Duisburg, and then began studying object design in 1996, graduating very successfully in 2002, at the age of 48, as a graduate object designer. For her, the studies were "pure pleasure" and she remembers her university teachers / lecturers such as Boris Gorin or Hans-Joachim Albrecht with pleasure. She describes all the lecturers as dedicated and how nice the many personal contacts with them were. Since her degree Marion Maas has been working as a freelance designer and has turned her hobby, something she has been "burning for" all her life, into her profession. She has designed church windows and designed the mourning room in the ecumenical chapel of the Helios Clinic with a 15 m long window sill. She has just designed a steele for the mourning place for butterfly children (children diagnosed with Epidermolysis bullosa) for the Krefeld-Lehmheide cemetery. She herself describes her work as a sign of change and new beginnings. For her as a working-class child, studies were not a matter of course, which is why today she encourages others to take this path. First of all, to her son, who also studied at the Hochschule Niederrhein and earned his degree in technical computer science. But she also recommends to anyone else: "This is a university, you can go there!"
