MSc in Technical University Munich
Hello!
Many readers of Habr are young talented guys who graduate from a university or are on one of the senior courses of technical universities in Russia and the CIS. Surely, many people have questions, “what to do next,” “where to go to work,” and so on. Two and a half years ago, I was in the same position and decided that I was still quite youngand handsome and would have time to plunge headlong into work later. In the meantime, you can look at other countries, learn and gain experience.
')
I want to share my impressions, because two years ago I dreamed that a man would appear and explain to me how enrollment, enrollment, studies, exams, payment, passing a foreign language exam take place, which university is better and why and so on. But there was no such person; everywhere I had to go through hundreds of e-mails with questions.
So, first things first:
Despite the fact that I studied physics at a university in Russia, after some choices, I entered the Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the Faculty of Computer Science. I was able to program, I understood computers, besides I found an interesting specialty that combines at the same time physics modeling, numerical methods and high-performance calculations on supercomputers.
To begin with, I identified several universities where I could learn. I looked in Google for “top 10 German technical groups”. In the end, I decided to try to enter the RTWH university in the city of Aachen or TUM in Munich. In Aachen, training was closer to pure Computer Science, I applied only to Munich.
To study in the magistracy enough Russian bachelor's degree (or master).
Since my business was not very good with German, I found the English-language program Computational Science and Engineering. Similar programs exist in other universities, you only need to search and choose what is more suitable.
1) We pass TOEFL ibt. You can sign up for the exam on the TOELF website. Testing centers are in all major cities. It costs about 6K rubles. Results give in 2 weeks, the letter comes in 6 weeks.
2) If we enter the winter semester, then documents must be handed over to the university, as a rule, until spring. It is necessary to take this into account and not be late.
3) If you are already studying in a magistracy in Russia, while the TOEFL goes by mail, you must go to your university, ask for an academic certificate. This is such a fashionable reference on watermarked paper, where all current grades and credits are written.
4) As a rule, the entire set of documents looks like this:
- TOEFL ibt certificate
- completed application (must be downloaded from the university site)
- one or two letters of recommendation from the supervisor
- motivation letter (covering letter, personal statement)
- resume (CV)
- a copy of the diploma
- a copy of the school certificate
All documents must be translated into German / English and notarized. As a rule, this is done very quickly and not very expensive.
Carefully consider writing a motivation letter. There is no need to tell a biography or mention what can be read in the summary. In this document it is necessary to show what kind of motivated person you are, why you should study at this university, what prerequisites for this are, to highlight the previous scientific work. It is necessary to keep within one page.
CV is very convenient to do in semi-automatic mode on the Europass site.
After the whole set of documents is assembled, we send it to the university selection committee. As soon as the letter arrives, the university will report this. The term of consideration is different everywhere, I think it will take 1-2 months (or a month after the deadline).
If everything is ok, then you will be informed about the successful admission. May need additional phone interview.
If you have received confirmation of admission to one of the universities in Germany, the next step will be to obtain a visa. Please contact your local consulate.
When applying for a national visa you need the following documents:
1. Application for a national visa (can be found on the embassy website) with photos pasted
2. Application in accordance with paragraph 55 of the Residence Act (usually attached to the main application)
3. An invitation from the university
4. Proof of financial security.
It is necessary to keep track of current requirements.
About the fourth point in more detail. In case you received a scholarship (for example DAAD), then you need to provide documents on obtaining scholarships. Otherwise, it is necessary to open a blocked account (Sperrkonto) in a German bank (for example, Deutschebank) and provide an extract from there. I could not open such an account, so I took out an extract from a Russian bank, from my account in euros, translated it into German and assured the notary. In addition, I wrote a commitment to the notary to open a blocked account immediately upon arrival in Germany.
The following documents may be useful (but not mandatory):
5. Motivation letter.
6. Certificate of passing the exam in German (or English, because I study in English)
7. Copies of diplomas, certified and translated into German.
After about 4-6 weeks, they will call from the embassy and report the result. Such a long period of consideration is due to the fact that the documents are sent to Germany.
Munich is the capital of Bavaria. As it turned out later, most of the things associated with Germany actually came from Bavaria: beer with sausages, national costumes, BMW and Audi, Siemens, Oktoberfest, alpine meadows, and so on.
The city is an industrial center with hundreds of companies operating in the field of engineering, medical equipment, information technology, finance and insurance. The largest two universities LMU and TUM have about 80 thousand students. The population of the city is about 1.4 million people, mild climate with not very cold winters and moderate summer. The Alps rise on the horizon, the city has many parks and cozy squares.
Prices are markedly higher than in the rest of Germany and the surrounding small cities. Of course, higher salaries, but before the salaries still need to unlearn at the university. The one who persistently searches, can find both grants, and good inexpensive habitation. Transportation is also quite expensive, especially after Russia. But from the next semester, a special ticket will be introduced for students - about 230 euros for half a year for any type of transport (including trains). In general, the transport system is just great, you can quickly and easily get to anywhere. I didn’t want to have a car. From March to November you can ride a bike (there are bike paths everywhere).
In general, 300 euros for housing, 50 for transport, 80 honey. insurance, ~ 200 for food. You can work, IT companies are many, students are willing to take.
TUM has three large campuses (the third one I have never seen, but it is said that the brewing department is located there). The first is located in the heart of the city and occupies a whole block. The second, where I study, is located outside the territory of Munich, near the suburb of Garching. Called Garching Forschungszentrum - Garching Research Center. There is a metro line to campus.
Campus on Google-maps
The campus has the following faculties: Physical, Chemical, Computer Science and Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering. Also, on the other side is a large institute of plasma physics. Max Planck (nobody studies there, just doing research)
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering:
Since the campus was built at the beginning of zero, all buildings are very new and meet all modern standards. The design is rather severe, and sometimes the building looks like a factory :)
Some photos from the phone:
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering inside:
Large audience:
Equipped university (compared to my old in Russia) is incredible. In each room there is a projector (in big 2), boards go up and down at the touch of a button, teachers give lectures with a microphone connected to the auditorium’s audio system.
Once or twice a year, an open day is held at the faculty, where everyone can come. Among the visitors there are many uncles and aunts with children, who curiously examine all the stands and ask hundreds of questions. A corner is organized for children, where they can collect various geometric shapes, fractals, etc. from different sticks and stripes. Also, many prospective students.
By the way, the pipes that you see in the background are real slides on which you can ride from the fourth to the first floor while sitting on rugs.
Students and teachers prepare various stands to demonstrate the result of their work.
Distributed scientific imaging system with motion capture system.
Real time simulation of a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Japan. Calculations and visualization are made on the graphics processor using CUDA:
The girl controls the hand of the robot, using sensors mounted on her hand:
Our computational fluid dynamics project is real-time waterfall simulation. We solved numerically the Navier-Stokes equation with the free surface boundary condition and obstacles.
Children visitors play by collecting geometric shapes and fractals from hangers:
I don’t remember all the departments in our faculty, but I can list some.
Scientific Computing Chair. Engaged in computational hydrodynamics, creating effective frameworks for solving PDE on parallelized systems, modeling tsunamis and earthquakes, and partially plasma physics.
Department of parallel systems. Engaged in improving the efficiency of systems with MPI and OpenMP, the development of performance analysis systems.
Department of applied software. Probably the easiest, but no less interesting - effective methods of software development, a lot of projects on the platform of iOS and MacOS.
Department of Scientific Visualization (TUM 3D). Systems of ray tracing and efficient rendering, image processing. Actively cooperates with various enterprises of Munich.
Read more on the website of the Faculty of Informatics .
Studying is somewhat different from what we are used to in Russia. There are winter (mid October - February) and summer (mid April - July) semesters. Vacations are quite long. In addition, there is a two-week holiday for the new year and Christmas.
Some departments establish for their students the necessary minimum of items that need to be passed. In general, the choice of objects is absolutely arbitrary. There is an information system for the entire university, where each student can find his subjects of interest and register for attending lectures (by the way, no one controls the visit).
Each item has a certain number of credits, in other words, the value of the item. Each loan corresponds approximately to 30 hours of work (at lectures or at home at home). In the semester, you need to earn about 30 credits in various subjects. Light survey lectures usually cost 2–4 credits, large complex lab courses 8–10.
For example, in the past semester, I studied compulsory subjects: labs programming supercomputers (5), parallel numerical methods (numerical linear algebra on palallic systems, 4 credits), patterns in software (5) and scientific visualization (4). Subjects of choice: particle modeling (3), image processing in physics (5) ,.
Basically, all exams are written. The list of questions is never published in advance; there is no “ticket” system. Just learning everything that was included in the lectures. Particular emphasis is placed on the practice and solution examples from homework.
In the research and development center there are two huge LRZ buildings (Leibniz Computer Center), inside of which there is a supercomputer (until recently it was the 4th in the top500 list) - SuperMUC. In addition to the main computer, there are several training clusters on which small calculations are performed, and students do homework and laboratory work.
SuperMUC on Wikipedia (English)
As far as I know, undergraduate education is free. The cost of training in the magistracy - 500 euros per semester, but will soon be canceled (already canceled throughout Germany, only Bavaria remained).
Almost all courses in the master's program are read in English. Therefore, I have never had any problems with German. All students speak English easily, the first time you can live and learn without knowing anything in German. Of course, in everyday life, German is needed: go to the store, a hairdresser. but it is easy to learn.
There are many interesting and prestigious technical universities in Germany: TUM, RWTH, FAU (Erlangen and Nuremberg), KIT (Technical University Karlsruhe). Each offers an extensive selection of programs (it is worth actively exploring their web pages).
Tuition is low, even compared to Russia, especially compared to England and the United States. It is very interesting to live and study in the center of Europe, you can easily go to any neighboring country.
You constantly meet many smart, interesting and talented people, students from all over the world study at the university. A lot from China, Russia, Latin America.
Admission is simple, the maximum that awaits you - this is a telephone interview. The decision on admission is made on the basis of a Russian diploma, resume, letters of recommendation and other papers telling you what a fine fellow you are.
It is impossible to describe everything at once, I guess I missed something. I can answer your questions.
The university in the buffet sell beer.
Many readers of Habr are young talented guys who graduate from a university or are on one of the senior courses of technical universities in Russia and the CIS. Surely, many people have questions, “what to do next,” “where to go to work,” and so on. Two and a half years ago, I was in the same position and decided that I was still quite young
')
I want to share my impressions, because two years ago I dreamed that a man would appear and explain to me how enrollment, enrollment, studies, exams, payment, passing a foreign language exam take place, which university is better and why and so on. But there was no such person; everywhere I had to go through hundreds of e-mails with questions.
So, first things first:
Motivation
Despite the fact that I studied physics at a university in Russia, after some choices, I entered the Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the Faculty of Computer Science. I was able to program, I understood computers, besides I found an interesting specialty that combines at the same time physics modeling, numerical methods and high-performance calculations on supercomputers.
To begin with, I identified several universities where I could learn. I looked in Google for “top 10 German technical groups”. In the end, I decided to try to enter the RTWH university in the city of Aachen or TUM in Munich. In Aachen, training was closer to pure Computer Science, I applied only to Munich.
Admission process
To study in the magistracy enough Russian bachelor's degree (or master).
Since my business was not very good with German, I found the English-language program Computational Science and Engineering. Similar programs exist in other universities, you only need to search and choose what is more suitable.
1) We pass TOEFL ibt. You can sign up for the exam on the TOELF website. Testing centers are in all major cities. It costs about 6K rubles. Results give in 2 weeks, the letter comes in 6 weeks.
2) If we enter the winter semester, then documents must be handed over to the university, as a rule, until spring. It is necessary to take this into account and not be late.
3) If you are already studying in a magistracy in Russia, while the TOEFL goes by mail, you must go to your university, ask for an academic certificate. This is such a fashionable reference on watermarked paper, where all current grades and credits are written.
4) As a rule, the entire set of documents looks like this:
- TOEFL ibt certificate
- completed application (must be downloaded from the university site)
- one or two letters of recommendation from the supervisor
- motivation letter (covering letter, personal statement)
- resume (CV)
- a copy of the diploma
- a copy of the school certificate
All documents must be translated into German / English and notarized. As a rule, this is done very quickly and not very expensive.
Carefully consider writing a motivation letter. There is no need to tell a biography or mention what can be read in the summary. In this document it is necessary to show what kind of motivated person you are, why you should study at this university, what prerequisites for this are, to highlight the previous scientific work. It is necessary to keep within one page.
CV is very convenient to do in semi-automatic mode on the Europass site.
After the whole set of documents is assembled, we send it to the university selection committee. As soon as the letter arrives, the university will report this. The term of consideration is different everywhere, I think it will take 1-2 months (or a month after the deadline).
If everything is ok, then you will be informed about the successful admission. May need additional phone interview.
Getting a visa
If you have received confirmation of admission to one of the universities in Germany, the next step will be to obtain a visa. Please contact your local consulate.
When applying for a national visa you need the following documents:
1. Application for a national visa (can be found on the embassy website) with photos pasted
2. Application in accordance with paragraph 55 of the Residence Act (usually attached to the main application)
3. An invitation from the university
4. Proof of financial security.
It is necessary to keep track of current requirements.
About the fourth point in more detail. In case you received a scholarship (for example DAAD), then you need to provide documents on obtaining scholarships. Otherwise, it is necessary to open a blocked account (Sperrkonto) in a German bank (for example, Deutschebank) and provide an extract from there. I could not open such an account, so I took out an extract from a Russian bank, from my account in euros, translated it into German and assured the notary. In addition, I wrote a commitment to the notary to open a blocked account immediately upon arrival in Germany.
The following documents may be useful (but not mandatory):
5. Motivation letter.
6. Certificate of passing the exam in German (or English, because I study in English)
7. Copies of diplomas, certified and translated into German.
After about 4-6 weeks, they will call from the embassy and report the result. Such a long period of consideration is due to the fact that the documents are sent to Germany.
City
Munich is the capital of Bavaria. As it turned out later, most of the things associated with Germany actually came from Bavaria: beer with sausages, national costumes, BMW and Audi, Siemens, Oktoberfest, alpine meadows, and so on.
The city is an industrial center with hundreds of companies operating in the field of engineering, medical equipment, information technology, finance and insurance. The largest two universities LMU and TUM have about 80 thousand students. The population of the city is about 1.4 million people, mild climate with not very cold winters and moderate summer. The Alps rise on the horizon, the city has many parks and cozy squares.
Prices are markedly higher than in the rest of Germany and the surrounding small cities. Of course, higher salaries, but before the salaries still need to unlearn at the university. The one who persistently searches, can find both grants, and good inexpensive habitation. Transportation is also quite expensive, especially after Russia. But from the next semester, a special ticket will be introduced for students - about 230 euros for half a year for any type of transport (including trains). In general, the transport system is just great, you can quickly and easily get to anywhere. I didn’t want to have a car. From March to November you can ride a bike (there are bike paths everywhere).
Cost of living and money
In general, 300 euros for housing, 50 for transport, 80 honey. insurance, ~ 200 for food. You can work, IT companies are many, students are willing to take.
Campus
TUM has three large campuses (the third one I have never seen, but it is said that the brewing department is located there). The first is located in the heart of the city and occupies a whole block. The second, where I study, is located outside the territory of Munich, near the suburb of Garching. Called Garching Forschungszentrum - Garching Research Center. There is a metro line to campus.
Campus on Google-maps
The campus has the following faculties: Physical, Chemical, Computer Science and Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering. Also, on the other side is a large institute of plasma physics. Max Planck (nobody studies there, just doing research)
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering:
Since the campus was built at the beginning of zero, all buildings are very new and meet all modern standards. The design is rather severe, and sometimes the building looks like a factory :)
Some photos from the phone:
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering inside:
Large audience:
Equipped university (compared to my old in Russia) is incredible. In each room there is a projector (in big 2), boards go up and down at the touch of a button, teachers give lectures with a microphone connected to the auditorium’s audio system.
Research work of teachers and students
Once or twice a year, an open day is held at the faculty, where everyone can come. Among the visitors there are many uncles and aunts with children, who curiously examine all the stands and ask hundreds of questions. A corner is organized for children, where they can collect various geometric shapes, fractals, etc. from different sticks and stripes. Also, many prospective students.
By the way, the pipes that you see in the background are real slides on which you can ride from the fourth to the first floor while sitting on rugs.
Students and teachers prepare various stands to demonstrate the result of their work.
Distributed scientific imaging system with motion capture system.
Real time simulation of a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Japan. Calculations and visualization are made on the graphics processor using CUDA:
The girl controls the hand of the robot, using sensors mounted on her hand:
Our computational fluid dynamics project is real-time waterfall simulation. We solved numerically the Navier-Stokes equation with the free surface boundary condition and obstacles.
Children visitors play by collecting geometric shapes and fractals from hangers:
Chairs
I don’t remember all the departments in our faculty, but I can list some.
Scientific Computing Chair. Engaged in computational hydrodynamics, creating effective frameworks for solving PDE on parallelized systems, modeling tsunamis and earthquakes, and partially plasma physics.
Department of parallel systems. Engaged in improving the efficiency of systems with MPI and OpenMP, the development of performance analysis systems.
Department of applied software. Probably the easiest, but no less interesting - effective methods of software development, a lot of projects on the platform of iOS and MacOS.
Department of Scientific Visualization (TUM 3D). Systems of ray tracing and efficient rendering, image processing. Actively cooperates with various enterprises of Munich.
Read more on the website of the Faculty of Informatics .
Studying proccess
Studying is somewhat different from what we are used to in Russia. There are winter (mid October - February) and summer (mid April - July) semesters. Vacations are quite long. In addition, there is a two-week holiday for the new year and Christmas.
Some departments establish for their students the necessary minimum of items that need to be passed. In general, the choice of objects is absolutely arbitrary. There is an information system for the entire university, where each student can find his subjects of interest and register for attending lectures (by the way, no one controls the visit).
Each item has a certain number of credits, in other words, the value of the item. Each loan corresponds approximately to 30 hours of work (at lectures or at home at home). In the semester, you need to earn about 30 credits in various subjects. Light survey lectures usually cost 2–4 credits, large complex lab courses 8–10.
For example, in the past semester, I studied compulsory subjects: labs programming supercomputers (5), parallel numerical methods (numerical linear algebra on palallic systems, 4 credits), patterns in software (5) and scientific visualization (4). Subjects of choice: particle modeling (3), image processing in physics (5) ,.
Basically, all exams are written. The list of questions is never published in advance; there is no “ticket” system. Just learning everything that was included in the lectures. Particular emphasis is placed on the practice and solution examples from homework.
Supercomputer
In the research and development center there are two huge LRZ buildings (Leibniz Computer Center), inside of which there is a supercomputer (until recently it was the 4th in the top500 list) - SuperMUC. In addition to the main computer, there are several training clusters on which small calculations are performed, and students do homework and laboratory work.
SuperMUC on Wikipedia (English)
Cost of education
As far as I know, undergraduate education is free. The cost of training in the magistracy - 500 euros per semester, but will soon be canceled (already canceled throughout Germany, only Bavaria remained).
Languages
Almost all courses in the master's program are read in English. Therefore, I have never had any problems with German. All students speak English easily, the first time you can live and learn without knowing anything in German. Of course, in everyday life, German is needed: go to the store, a hairdresser. but it is easy to learn.
Total
There are many interesting and prestigious technical universities in Germany: TUM, RWTH, FAU (Erlangen and Nuremberg), KIT (Technical University Karlsruhe). Each offers an extensive selection of programs (it is worth actively exploring their web pages).
Tuition is low, even compared to Russia, especially compared to England and the United States. It is very interesting to live and study in the center of Europe, you can easily go to any neighboring country.
You constantly meet many smart, interesting and talented people, students from all over the world study at the university. A lot from China, Russia, Latin America.
Admission is simple, the maximum that awaits you - this is a telephone interview. The decision on admission is made on the basis of a Russian diploma, resume, letters of recommendation and other papers telling you what a fine fellow you are.
It is impossible to describe everything at once, I guess I missed something. I can answer your questions.
The most important
The university in the buffet sell beer.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/169791/
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