Johanna Spyri, best known for her iconic Heidi, sends another young heroine into the world, this time to face the challenges of adulthood and professional life. Sina Normann leaves her close-knit alpine community to become one of the first women to attend medical school at the University of Zürich. Along her chosen path she must confront her family's fears, her instructors' prejudices, and the demands of her own heart. Published not long after women were first admitted to the University of Zürich, the novel is one of the first works in German to present female students seriously rather than as objects of humor. In her introduction, Anna Lisa Ohm argues that Sina may have been intended as a sequel to Heidi.