You have to think about how to finance your livelihood during your studies in Germany. In case you are not able to raise the necessary money by your own, there are different options to get a scholarship. Scholarships are offered for example by private foundations, your university, your government or the European Union. The foreign exchange office of your home university can tell you more about these possibilities and they will help you to obtain the necessary financial support.

For planing your stay in Wuppertal please note the helpful information on the following websites. Furthermore you can contact Ms Heike Kreimendahl and Ms Corinna Rademacher in case of administrative problems.

Dear prospective incoming students,

you are thinking about coming to Wuppertal to study one semester or even longer at the Bergische Universität. Excellent idea! Yet the obstacles appear to be many, and the way through the administrative maze may seem long and frustrating. Appearances, however, can be misleading. We have a saying in Germany: nothing is eaten as hot as it has been cooked. So let's not panic, let's analyze the situation. There are three main obstacles to overcome:

• Problem 1: You have to have enough money to pay for your living during your studies in Germany. That problem is mainly your personal problem. There are bound to be a variety of scholarship options, offered by private foundations, your university, your government or the European Union. The foreign exchange office of your home university can inform you of these possibilities and they will help you to obtain financial support. So from my point of view this problem has already been solved by you.
• Problem 2: You have to find accommodation in Wuppertal, you have to enrol as student, you might want to take language courses, you might ... whatever. All these things have nothing directly to do with the Department of Civil Engineering and are therefore handled by our foreign exchange office (Akademisches Auslandsamt). They have a web site at www.internationales.uni-wuppertal.de where you find a wealth of information, and you can contact directly Ms Heike Kreimendahl (kreimendahl[at]verwaltung.uni-wuppertal.de) and Ms Corinna Rademacher (rademacher[at]verwaltung.uni-wuppertal.de). They will help you with all administrative problems. So from my point of view these questions are solved at a higher level.
• Problem 3: You have to prepare an academic program. Often such a learning plan is a prerequisite for obtaining a scholarship. For the Erasmus Program, e.g., you have to have an approved so-called Learning Agreement. Such academic programs are not simply harassments - they serve a useful purpose. Once you have returned to your home university, the question arises whether the courses you have attended her at Wuppertal can be transferred, entirely or in part, to your study account. This question is better answered in advance to avoid later disappointment. All academic questions regarding your exchange fall into the responsibility of the Department of Civil Engineering and will be dealt with on this site.

The question of credit transfer is non-trivial. The European Credit Transfer System ECTS regulates mostly quantitative aspects: the credit points represent the work load and the ECTS-grade the relative achievement. Before it comes to the transfer of these data, however, your professors must decide whether the course in question can substitute one of theirs. That is a question of contents, of quality, which is a lot more difficult to settle than the comparatively trivial quantitative credit point aspect.

Courses in different countries are different, even if they cover basically the same subjects. We each have different academic traditions which are just different, not better or worse. One of the motivations of studying abroad is in fact the opportunity to experience such a different academic culture - if everything were the same in Germany as it is in your home country you might as well stay home. Chances are that the weather would be better. So we professors should not look for identical courses. Instead we try to find out whether a course is equivalent to one of ours so that we can accept it, even if the topics addressed in the course are somewhat different. In order to do this your professors need a detailed description of what we do in our lectures here. Such descriptions can be found for both the bachelor programme and the master programme. Browse these lists, print the descriptions of the courses that interest you, discuss them with your professors, and your Learning Agreement will be finished in almost no time. OK, it will take some time, but should not prove too difficult.

Please click on the following links to proceed to the bachelor programme and the master programme.

The next question is exams. Often you are already back home when the exams are taken. Or you attend only the first semester of a two-semester course and there is no exam for only the part you have taken. That sounds problematic, but it is in fact not so, because you are not subject to our regulations. In all these cases we offer the option to take a special oral exam, independent from the rest of the class. You only have to demonstrate sufficient knowledge - the administrative part is a piece of cake.

One final advice. Do not be too concerned with credit transfer. Life is more than sitting all day in the lecture hall. The experience of living in a different culture, learning a foreign language, finding new friends ... the list could be endless ... is priceless and much more important than the question of whether credits could be transferred fully, or only partially, or even not at all. You might find courses interesting which have no counterpart back home – maybe their fascination lies in the fact that they are somewhat exotic. Now you have the unique opportunity of really enjoying the academic freedom of a student. Of course, you can later work abroad – maybe the language skills you acquired during your exchange or the contacts you have made will prove instrumental for obtaining such a job – but even the most satisfying work is still work: you have greater responsibility, you are not as free as you are now. We’ll do our best to help you to acquire the theoretically required 30 credit point per semester. Yet if the harvest is somewhat smaller: so what?!