The Erasmus-Office of the Faculty of Geosciences
Hello and welcome in Münster! We are very happy about your interest in studying at the University of Münster as an exchange student. The Erasmus-Office is the first contact point for you at the Faculty of Geosciences for questions regarding the Erasmus+-program. We are responsible for all incoming as well as outgoing-students. The team consists of Annika, Caroline and Lukas. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us, either by mail (erasmus.geo@uni-muenster.de), by phone (+49251 8333988) or as soon as you have arrived to Münster personally during our office hours. You can check out the latest office hours on our website.
Information about the Faculty of Geosciences
The Faculty of Geosciences consists of different undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. These are:
- Landscape Ecology: as both, under- and postgraduate degrees
- Geosciences: as both, under- and postgraduate degrees
- Geographyas an undergraduate degree, Human Geography as an postgraduate degree
- Didactics of Geography
- Geoinformatics: as both, under- and postgraduate degrees, there are two postgraduate degrees and both are taught in English
- Water Sciences: as an postgraduate degree
Information about the study schedule of the different subjects can be found on the linked websites.
As an exchange student you come to the University of Münster through a contract with one of the listed degrees, but it is not mandatory for you to only participate in courses this degree consists of. Instead, you are allowed to choose from all courses of the Faculty of Geosciences. The courses of the current semester as well as previous semesters can be found in the course catalogue. Unfortunately, we cannot ensure that all courses, especially seminars, will take place in future semesters as well. Those vary each semester. Keep that in mind while making your schedule.
The majority of courses of the faculty, especially in undergraduate degrees, are taught in German (there are exceptions in geoinformatics). In postgraduate degrees some classes are also available in English. The Institute of Geoinformatics offers two postgraduate degrees which are entirely taught in English. But these do require pre-knowledge in informatics or geoinformatics. Contact the lecturer directly to make sure if your pre-knowledge is sufficient.
Moreover, you are able to attend courses of other faculties of the university. The different faculties are listed here. Partly, other institutes offer classes in English, i. e. the Institute of Political Sciences. Again courses can be found in the course catalogue.
How to apply
When you decide to do an Erasmus semester at the University of Münster , at first you have to apply for it at your home university. If everything goes well with your application, your home university nominates you at the University of Münster and the University Münster ordinarily accepts your application. The University of Münster afterwards informs you about the further application process. Before you move to Münster you should choose the courses you would like to do during your Erasmus semester. The course catalogue helps you to find suitable courses (some years ago the Erasmus-Office prepared a document explaining the course catalogue, maybe it helps you to get along with the system). Unfortunately, courses for future semesters are only published a short time prior the new semesters start (for the winter semester normally in June or July and for the summer semester in January or February). Courses of previous semesters can function as a guideline for your course choice since many overall similar courses are held at least once per year. The courses you are interested in are listed in the Learning Agreement, which need to be signed by you as well as the responsible person of both universities, the sending and the receiving one. Please send a scan of your Learning Agreement or a list of the classes you would like to take part to the Erasmus-Office (erasmus.geo@uni-muenster.de). With this list we will register you for the courses you chose.
First steps at the faculty
To get to know the institutes, the other Erasmus students at the faculty and us we organize a Welcome Meeting at the beginning of each semester. As soon as the semester starts you need to attend the first session of the classes you would like to participate. The first meeting of seminars is always mandatory, if you are not physically attending or at least sending a person as a substitute, you might lose your spot! Furthermore, in the first lesson you should talk to the lecturer and tell him / her that you take part in his / her class as an Erasmus student. If there are any changes with the courses you attend in comparison with your Learning Agreement you have to give these changes in a second table of the document. Again, you need the signatures from both universities. Eventually you can discuss an alternative exam with the lecturers as well. Sometimes it is possible to write a report or give an oral exam instead of a written one.
The Transcript of Records
When your Erasmus semester is coming to an end and you successfully passed all of your exams and study performances you have to turn in to your lecturers again, you have to ask them to fill and sign a certificate (you can find it here or next to the door of the Erasmus-Office) which confirms your course performance and ECTS credits. Once you have collected all the certificates of your courses you have to hand them in to the Erasmus-Office (Room 4, Heisenbergstraße 2). Based on these documents we prepare your Transcript of Records within a few days. Because of the difficulty of the German language, the ECTS-credits of your courses taught in German are multiplied with the factor 1.5, this means that you will get a little more ECTS credits for successfully passed courses.
Language courses
The University's “Sprachenzentrum” (Centre of Languages) offers German classes of different language levels. On the one hand there are two-week intensive courses before the semester starts. For these you apply directly at the “Sprachenzentrum” via e-mail. Before you can do the intensive courses, you have to pass a placement test, so called the C-test. All information regarding the language courses can be found online additionally an information event will take place during the Welcome Week. Besides the intensive language courses before the semester start, there are German classes during the semester for which you also apply at the Sprachenzentrum. Furthermore, they offer a huge variety of other languages to learn. Available courses can be found here.
Additional support
Besides the Erasmus-Office (EO) there are other institutions which are responsible for the support of international students. First of all, the International Office (IO) . It is i. e. responsible for your enrolment at the University Münster, the student ID cards or the NRW-semester ticket which allows you to use public transport in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is also the right address for questions regarding accommodation, insurance or similar organizational issues. The IO published a guide summarizing the most important information about the preparation for a potential stay in Münster. You can find the document here.
At the beginning of each semester the Erasmus-Verein organizes a Welcome Week as well as a Buddy-programme. Every international student has the chance to collaborate with a student from Münster. You are flexible to just meet up and do whatever you like. Of course, you will get any kind of support you might need for a good start in Münster. The Erasmus-Verein is an organization of students of the University of Münster. It offers office hours for Erasmus students, you can find the current ones here. Moreover, there is a so-called “Stammtisch” every Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. in the Cuba club (a night club close to the train station), a good opportunity to get to know people from all over the world. Furthermore, the Erasmus-Verein organizes different events, parties or trips. The current events can be checked out on their Facebook-page.
Last but not least we want to mention “Die Brücke”. This institution is especially responsible for a cultural exchange of international students and students of the WWU. The Brücke offers plenty of different cultural events like international evenings, concerts, film screenings and so on. The current events can be checked out here. All students are warmly welcome to join. They might be a good possibility to get to know non-Erasmus-students.
Again: the Erasmus-Office is always available for questions, either personally during our office hours, via e-mail or by phone!