Index

I am facing my last attempt for an exam or I failed my last attempt. What do I do now?

When you learn that you failed your penultimate attempt, you should contact your study advisor as early as possible in order to be optimally prepared for the last attempt and to inform yourself about possible study alternatives.

It is important for you to understand that if you fail a last attempt in your current specialization of our master’s program in Medical Engineering, you will be de-registered from the program as a whole and will be blocked from entering our Medical Engineering program ever again. This is also true for our other specializations, meaning that if you failed in one specialization, you cannot change to another one (as they both belong to the same study program, which you are permanently blocked from).

If you fail our master’s program in Medical Engineering, you are still allowed to apply to all other master’s programs at FAU, however. Please be aware that in order to transfer to another master’s program at FAU, you need to formally apply for this alternative program via the Campo portal within the official application period and be granted admission to this program. Therefore, you MUST apply to other suitable English-taught master’s programs at FAU in the semester in which you have your last exam attempt. In addition to programs at FAU, you MUST also apply to programs at other German universities in order to broaden your chances. Please inform yourself early on about the application deadlines! Public universities tend to have earlier deadlines. Private universities (e.g. in Fürth) might offer you the chance to apply until shortly before the start of the new semester, but they charge high tuition fees. If you get admission to the alternative study program, you have a backup plan for the following semester if you cannot continue your studies in the Medical Engineering program. You have to inform the immigration office when you change your study program. Please note, however, that the immigration authorities will usually only allow you to change your study program once.

If you feel unable to take the last exam attempt on the examination day, you must withdraw from it before it takes place by submitting a medical certificate to the Examinations Office (helga.jahreis[at]fau.de). If you suddenly feel ill during the exam, you have to inform your exam supervisor immediately, leave the exam and directly go to an officially recognized doctor (Vertrauenssarzt). After you have finished the exam, it is generally not possible to declare it invalid  retroactively (for example due to illness or personal crisis).

If you have failed your exam in the last attempt, this means that you will lose your enrollment status in our program by the end of the semester. If you don’t have admission for another program you can transfer to, you won’t be an enrolled student anymore and subsequently lose your student status. If you are in Germany on a study visa this visa becomes invalid, meaning that you become “illegal” and may have to leave Germany and the Schengen area immediately. PLEASE TAKE THIS MATTER VERY SERIOUSLY! You must inform your local immigration authority as soon as you learn that you will lose your student status. Your responsible immigration officer will inform you of your next steps. If you have a student job, you will also lose it from the moment you are not an enrolled student anymore. The same applies if you live in a student residence/student dorm. Please make sure to inform the responsible officers in due time in order to avoid legal problems.

What else can you do?

If you have a bachelor’s degree with good to very good grades,  at least intermediate German skills (B1/B2) and are motivated and open to other options, you can try to find a STEM job in Germany and apply for a conversion of your study visa to a work visa. If this is a viable path for you, please seek advice from our officer of the German Employment Agency, Mr. Hümmer (michael.huemmer[at]arbeitsagentur.de) as soon as possible.

Which lectures am I supposed to use for M8/Free Choice Uni (study regulation FPO 2018 and onwards)?

For this module, you can take any graded technical or non-technical course offered at any faculty of FAU. Please make sure that you receive a grade in that course. Just browse through our online course platform Campo and see which courses look interesting to you. You can also use courses offered by the Virtual University Bavaria (VHB), provided that they offer an exam with identity control (= exam under supervision, either on-site or remotely via zoom/camera) or a written paper.

Possible courses include but are not limited to: economics, language courses, psychology, literature, history, any module of our Faculty of Engineering or the Medical Engineering degree program itself or your conditional subjects. In case you don’t feel inspired we can recommend “Nailing your Thesis” (by Prof. Dirk Riehle), as it is a good preparation for your Master’s thesis.

If you were admitted with conditional subjects you can also use your conditional subjects in module group M8.

You can also take more modules and exams for M8 and thus acquire more ECTS credits than the required amount of ECTS points for M8 (5 ECTS). If you complete more exams than needed and do not state any preference at the Examinations Office, it will select the best possible grades when issuing your Master’s certificate.

If you take classes outside of our Facutly of Engineering, it is possible that the exam registration cannot be conducted via the Campo portal. In this case, please contact the lecturer or Mrs. Jahreis of our Examinations Office (helga.jahreis[at]fau.de) and ask them to register your exam manually.

How do I travel to Erlangen?

The most convenient option is to book a flight to Nürnberg (Nuremberg). From there, you take the subway line U2 (subway station right in front of the airport entrance) to Nürnberg main station (Hauptbahnhof/Hbf). Trains to Erlangen leave several times per hour. You can buy your train ticket at the ticket machines, online or at the Railway Service Centre (“DB Reisezentrum”) located on the ground floor in the western side hall. Choose “Erlangen Bahnhof/Bhf” (Erlangen station) as your destination. The train ride takes around 30 minutes. From Erlangen station you can take a taxi or bus to your accommodation. For more information on bus services, see vgn.de/en/.

Besides the subway connection, you can also reach the airport easily using the Nuremberg bus network. The bus stop for lines 30 and 33 is located in front of the departure and arrival terminals. The bus lines 30 and 33 connect the Airport with Erlangen and Fürth, respectively.

What are the job opportunities after I finish my master’s degree in Medical Engineering?

Studying Medical Engineering at FAU is closely linked to strong research and industrial partners, such as Siemens, adidas, Fraunhofer Society and many others. This gives our students the chance to make useful contacts early on (e.g. during their Master’s project) and increases their job prospects. For an overview of companies involved in the ‘Medical Valley’ of Erlangen-Nürnberg, click here.

Am I eligible for the specializations Medical Image Processing, HMDA or Medical Robotics?

Please understand that we cannot assess your chances of admission before you actually apply. However, our basic academic requirements can give you an initial idea of what we expect from our applicants:

  • a subject-related qualification (computer science or engineering) for university entrance at Master’s level (e.g. bachelor’s degree).
  • Furthermore, we expect our students to possess excellent programming skills (C/C++/Java, Matlab, Python), profound knowledge in Electrical Engineering and a strong theoretical Mathematics background. Our entrance qualification board individually evaluates each application with all taken courses in the Bachelor’s program. This means that having studied Medical Engineering does not automatically make you suitable for entering our Master’s program, as the content of each Bachelor’s program varies enormously. On the other hand, you do not necessarily need a degree in Medical Engineering to join the program.
  • an overall grade of 2,5 or better according to the German grading system (in which 1,0 is the best grade and 4,0 the worst passing grade)

Our English language requirements can be viewed on our info page for prospective Master students.

Can I take additional exercises or practical courses that are being offered together with a lecture from my module catalog?

Yes. All lectures can be complemented by additional exercises and practical courses offered by the same lecturer to accompany the respective course. This way, you can increase their ECTS value of the grade that you obtain by taking the respective exam.

The Examinations Office automatically selects the best achievements from the module group while issuing the BA or MA certificates. The remaining achievements will not count towards your grade average. If you want to decide for yourself which subjects should be counted for your Bachelor’s/Master’s degree, please contact the Examinations Office in due course before your final certificate is issued. The remaining achievements will not be listed in the certificate but in the transcript of records under the category “Zusatzleistungen” (additional achievements).

Which lectures am I supposed to use for M7/Flexible Budget Faculty of Engineering (study regulation FPO 2018 and onwards)?

For this module group (10 ECTS), you can generally take any graded course offered by our Faculty of Engineering which is offered as a mandatory subject or “compulsory elective” in a Master’s program of our Faculty of Engineering. You can find out which faculty and study programs a certain course belongs to by consulting our online course platform Campo.

Please search for your desired course under “studies offered” – “search for courses”.

  1. Under “parallel groups/dates” you can find the lecturer of the course. Please click on their name in order to find out about their affiliation with a chair/lab. By clicking on the arrow next to their name, you can see the department structure which the chair/lab belongs to. If you want to use the course in M7, your lecturer has to be a member of a lab/chair that is part of the Faculty of Engineering.
  2. Please click on the “basic data” section of the course. Here, you can find out if the course is part of the curriculum of at least one Master’s program of the Faculty of Engineering (“TechFak”). If this is the case, the cours is suitable for M7.
  3.  The course has to be graded.

In addition to the above-mentioned engineering modules, you can also use a defined set of modules from the field of economics, which are listed in your module catalog for M7.

Exception for HMDA students:  If you are studying in the specialization “Health & Medical Data Analytics and Entrepreneurship” (HMDA), you can only choose your modules for M7 from the list you can find in your module catalog for module group M7. This is due to the fact that for HMDA students, all M7 modules have to be related to economics, innovation or entrepreneurship.

IMPORTANT: Former conditional subjects (“Engineering Mathematics”, “Probability and Stochastic Processes”, “Algorithms, Programming and Data Representation”, “Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering”) cannot be used in M7, as they are considered courses on Bachelor’s level, the contents of which are prerequisites to start our master’s program.

If the module description in Campo states explicitly that the module cannot be used for M7, this statement applies.

If you are unsure about whether a certain module falls into these categories please contact your study advisor.

Can modules be interchanged within the module catalog?

Yes, but only some of them – according to the following rules:

  • For module M3 you can use a module/modules worth max. 5 ECTS points in total from the module groups M2 and M5 of your own specialization or from M2, M3 and M5 of the other specializations of our Medical Engineering program (i.e. “Medical Image and Data Processing” or “Medical Robotics” or “Health & Medical Data Analytics and Entrepreneurship” or “Medizinelektronik” or “Medizinische Produktionstechnik, Gerätetechnik und Prothetik”). The specializations with German names are generally taught in German, but you might find some English-taught modules in their course catalogs,.
  • For module M5 you can use a module/modules worth max. 5 ECTS points in total from the module groups M2 and M3 of your own specialization or from M2, M3 and M5 of the other specializations of our Medical Engineering program (i.e. “Medical Image and Data Processing” or “Medical Robotics” or “Health & Medical Data Analytics and Entrepreneurship” or “Medizinelektronik” or “Medizinische Produktionstechnik, Gerätetechnik und Prothetik”). The specializations with German names are generally taught in German, but you might find some English-taught modules in their course catalogs.

Other modules which are not in alignment with the above rules, cannot be used for your module groups M3 or M5.

You can ask Mrs. Jahreis (helga.jahreis[at]fau.de to move your modules to another module group until the very end of your studies, before your final degree documents are issued.

I have completed the last achievement of my studies. Will I be deregistered from the university right away and lose my student status?

No, you stay registered as a student for the entire semester in which you have completed your last achievement. This means that you keep your student status until the end of the semester (30th of September or 31st of March respectively), hence you can continue to work as a student assistant/working student and continue to live in a students residence until that date. This also applies if you have already received your Bachelor´s or Master´s certificate. If you wish for an early de-registration (e.g. for job purposes), please contact our Student Records Office.

The exams that are concluding my studies are part of the second exam period and therefore take place in a new semester. Do I have to re-register?

No, if they are the last exams of your studies, you do not have to re-register. You can take those exams even if the dates are in the new semester. You can still see your grades in the Campo portal and even have the possibility to take the respective repeat exams in the subsequent semester if necessary.