Erasmus+ Incoming Students

Information for Incoming Erasmus+ exchange students of Computer Science at FAU

Application process

If you would like to study at the Department of Computer Science at FAU within the Erasmus+ student exchange program, you need to perform the following steps:

  1. Find out whether your home university is participating in the Erasmus+ exchange with the FAU Computer Science Department.
  2. Apply for exchange with FAU at your home university.
    • A language level of A2 in either German or English is required to study at FAU in the Erasmus+ exchange.
  3. If your home university selected you for going to FAU, you will receive instructions from the FAU Mobility Team on how to apply. Make sure that you are selected for the Computer Science Department, not for some other department!
  4. Fill in a Learning Agreement.

There is a StudOn Course for Erasmus students who have an IdM identification for StudOn: https://www.studon.fau.de/crs4353846_join.html  (Attention! This link works only for students with FAU IdM account and StudOn login!) This course is for Incoming and Outgoing Students to get in contact with other students or to ask questions. Please use it!

While you’re at FAU

RIA offers some information for orientation.

There is a Welcome Event at the Faculty of Engineering in winter semester.

You can also get help in the buddy-program or at the FSI.

When you leave FAU

  • The following services will not work anymore after your official exmatriculation:
    • Your FAU email address will remain valid, but you have to forward your FAU mail to some other address if you want to use it after exmatriculation:
    • Your FAU Card and your public transport ticket (Semesterticket) will not work after the exmatriculation.
  • The following services will work with local login using the same login and password as for the single sign-on you used before:
    • campo, StudOn

There are two terms at FAU: winter term (October-March) and summer term (April-September). Most importantly, both terms have TWO examination periods, and here you have to be careful.

  • Winter term: (1) Mid to end of February and (2) End of March to mid of April
  • Summer term: (1) End of July to mid of August and (2) End of September to mid of October

This means that for the second examination period, exchange students will likely already leave for their home university! If this is the case for you, please read further.

There is no official workaround for this, but you should at least do the following:

  • Before the lectures start:
  • After the start of the lectures:
    • For the current term, lecturers can usually tell you whether their exams will be in the first or in the second period, even if the exact exam dates become known later. So you should ask this for every lecture you take. Explain why you are asking: because you will not be there in the second exam period. Please DO NOT ask via email, but after the lecture.
    • If the lecturer says that the exam is going to be in the second exam period, ask if it would be possible to take an (oral) examination in the first exam period. Do this as early as possible! Otherwise, if the lecturer says „no“, you will be taking the course for nothing, as you will not be able to attend exams.
    • If you have problems with the exam, you can ask your Erasmus coordinator, but please keep in mind that the only thing they can do is to ask your lecturer again via email. So YOU are the person who has direct contact to the lecturer, and so, you are in a better position to ask.
    • If the lecturer refuses, then it might be better to drop out of the course and to choose some other course instead.

  • At FAU, exchange students are free to attend any courses at any department if they meet the prerequisites and get a spot in these courses. They can also, of course, take the corresponding exams. The courses can be looked up in the campo system, please use this Guide:

    • Campo and/or StudOn might say that you do not meet the requirements for a given course and might not let you join the StudOn-course. This might not be true. If you think that you meet the requirements, please apply for admission in StudOn and contact the responsible lecturer.
    • Guide to choosing Computer Science courses at FAU (PDF)
    • List of English Courses (please regard this list as a snapshot, as courses may change from year to year; you may additionally conduct search in campo as described in the PDF guide above): List of English Courses
    • For all other courses, please follow a similar procedure in other parts of the system.
  • NOBODY has exact information about courses taking place next year. Thus, if you are planning to come to FAU in year X, you have to choose preliminary courses for your Learning Agreement from the module catalogues available for year X-1 (from the corresponding winter or summer term) because the courses taking place during your stay might not yet be available in campo. When you arrive at FAU, you will be able to adjust your Learning Agreement. This is what over 90% of Erasmus students usually have to do. Of course, if you are lucky, you might not need an adjustment.
  • You can also take courses offered by VHB.
  • If you want, you can take a language course at the language center or a soft skill course with Ziwis

Lecturers can choose several possibilities on how to enroll (StudOn, campo, own system), such that it is not possible to give a precise procedure. Please consider these general recommendations:

  • Sometimes you just need to go to the first lecture and receive information on how to enroll there.
  • Most enrollments are only possible when the semester starts: April or October.
  • Courses usually start 2-3 weeks after the semester starts.
  • Lecturers add enrollment information in a decentralized way, sometimes quite shortly before the start of the courses.
  • Look up the information pages of your chosen courses every few days: at some point, the enrollment information will appear.

Before you go to FAU, you will have to compose the so-called Learning Agreement. Please consider the following guidance:

  • Your first Learning Agreement (LA) is preliminary. Therefore, there is no need to worry too much about it being correct or not!  When you arrive at FAU, you may have to change it. This is quite usual, because some courses might not take place, or collide with other courses, etc.
  • LAs can be online or on paper (PDF or Word files)
    • The online system is not working reliably yet. Therefore, if you submitted your LA online and did not get any response within 5 days, please contact your FAU Erasmus coordinator via email.
    • Please make sure that the responsible persons at your university signed the LA first. If they want FAU to sign first, please make sure that they approve of your LA.
    • PDF or Word LAs should have the following fields filled in:
      • Tables A and B (or changes to Tables A and B), with the total sum of ECTS
      • Responsible person(s) at sending institution (with signature, if possible)
      • Responsible person at receiving institution: name (Dr. Zinaida Benenson), position (Erasmus coordinator) and date. Thus, the only thing I have to add to the document should be my signature.

After your arrival at FAU, you might need to change your LA, for example if some courses are not taking place, or you decide to cancel a course, or to enroll in a new course. This is not a problem at all, just do the following:

  • Use the part of your LA that states „During the Mobility“. It contains two tables: „Changes to Table A“ and „Changes to Table B“, where you can mark the corresponding changes.
  • Don’t forget to sum up your ECTS anew!
  • Fill in the same fields as in your first LA:
    • Responsible person(s) at sending institution (with signature, if possible)
    • Responsible person at receiving institution: name (Dr. Zinaida Benenson), position (Erasmus coordinator) and date. Thus, the only thing I have to add to the document should be my signature.
    • When sending your changed LA to me for signature, explain briefly why the changes were made.