Industry internships and student jobs

An industry internship (German: “Industriepraktikum”) is usually defined as a limited period of time during which students work full-time (around 35-40 hours/week) at a company. Due to this high number of working hours, it can generally not be carried out while studying at the same time, hence it is only suitable for the lecture-free period or while taking a study leave (“Urlaubssemester”, see below). Please note that your exams also take place during the lecture-free period and will require intense preparation. It is crucial to take this into account when planning an industry internship/job activity during this time.

The main difference is that with voluntary internships your salary will be “gross” (taxes apply and will be deducted) and with mandatory internships, it will be not. Moreover, for voluntary internships (extracurricular) the company needs to offer a minimum wage salary which is currently 12,41 € per hour (in 2024) and for mandatory internships (curricular) it can be unpaid or with a salary lower than minimum wage. During a mandatory internship, students are covered by their regular student health insurance, whereas conditions might differ for voluntary internships, which means your employer has to pay for social security. For the above mentioned reasons, most companies will be interested in hiring interns for mandatory internships. As there is no mandatory industry internship included in the Medical Engineering Master’s program, however, we cannot issue you any certificates confirming that your internship is mandatory. Do not sign any documents stating that your industry internship is mandatory yourself – it is considered fraud and will get you in serious trouble. If you have an accident at work you will not be covered by any health insurance.

You are welcome to carry out voluntary industry internships if you wish, but you need to be aware that they will not count towards your studies. Please note that in most cases intermediate to advanced German skills are required (B1 or higher). Although we cannot arrange internships for you, we offer you an overview over medical engineering companies in the Erlangen region, which engage in the field of medical image and data processing. Please contact the companies yourself and ask if you can apply as an intern. We highly recommend that you taker a study leave (“Urlaubssemester”, detailed info here) if your internship covers at least 7 weeks of the lecture period, as your internship period will not count as a regular study semester this way (important for visa extension!).

Unlike industry internships, so-called student jobs, working student jobs or jobs as a student assistant at the university, are carried out part-time. All these jobs count towards the maximum of 20 hours per week that students are allowed to work during the lecture period. During the lecture-free period (“holidays”), you are in principle allowed to work full-time, although it is not recommended due to the high intensity of preparatory work that your exams require.

“Student job” (German: “Studentenjob”) is the most general term, which can refer to any kind of work that you do alongside your studies (food delivery service etc.). The term “working student” (German: “Werkstudent”) is usually applied to jobs that are somewhat related to the academic background of the student. Both kinds of jobs cannot be counted towards your studies.

Student assistants (German: “Studentische Hilfskraft” or short: “Hiwi”) are employed at the university. They help with administrative tasks or research work at a lab or department, depending on the job profile. If your Hiwi jobs entails research work at a lab, you might be able to use this work as your Research Lab or Academic Lab module. If this is your case, please discuss the details with your study advisor. Student assistant jobs are the only kind of job which does not count towards the maximum of 140 full days that Non-EU students are allowed to work (see below). However, they count towards the maximum of 20 hours per week (see above).

You can find a broad range of jobs for students (related to engineering or not) in our job portal “Stellenwerk” (in German). Mostly engineering-specific jobs (for students and graduates) can be found in the job database of our alumni club of the Faculty of Engineering (in German).  If you would like to work as a student assistant at the university we recommend to regularly have a look at the job offer section of the FAU website. The job offer section of our study program website is also a good source of information for job offers in the medtech area. In this facebook group about Medical Engineering in Erlangen founded by Prof. Maier you can also regularly find offers for student job positions related to Medical Engineering. The Fraunhofer Institute located next to our Faculty of Engineering offers student jobs, too. Moreover, the German Employment Agency offers regular consultation hours at our Faculty of Engineering, in which you can discuss your best entry options to the German job market. You can contact the responsible officer Mr. Hümmer via email: michael.huemmer[at]arbeitsagentur.de to make an appointment.
Apart from that, it is always a good idea to look around the notice boards around campus, for many companies advertise internships and student jobs there.

In addition to the above information, you can find a comprehensive overview of the most important job-related facts and tips for international students in this video:

If you need help with your job search, your application documents or preparing a job interview, feel free to refer to our Career Service. Our Central Study Service Center at the Faculty of Engineering also offers workshops on entering the German job market, optimizing your cv etc. on a regular basis. Please find its current course offer here.