Your steps before starting your studies

As a student at Coburg University of Applied Sciences, you have your own user account.
The account has already been created for you and must be activated by you before you start your studies.
You can only activate your user account after you have enrolled.
You will need your user account for:

• Access to our student portal my campus with links to all online services (Primuss, Moodle, e-mail) of the university
• Access to your e-mail account
• Registration in the WLAN network “HS-Coburg”
• Use of PC workstations at the university
• Use of the central FollowMe printing system
• Access to the university servers (internal and external)

You can activate your user account one day after your successful enrollment at Coburg University of Applied Sciences.
The following steps are necessary:

• You will need your matriculation number to activate your user account.
  You can find this on your registration certificate.
• Follow the link https://www.hs-coburg.de/freischaltung and enter your details there.
• You will then receive your user name and your university e-mail address.
  With the username and password you have set, you can now log in to your student university account and use numerous university IT services.
• Please also note the information on secure login with multi-factor authentication.

After activating your user account, you will have access to our student portal mycampus.
The mycampus student portal is the central platform for your studies at Coburg University of Applied Sciences.
In mycampus you will find:

• News and updates from your degree program
• Program-specific documents and forms (module handbooks, timetables and examination schedules, internships, etc.)
• Special services for students
• Latest news from Coburg University of Applied Sciences
• Interesting event dates

As soon as you are logged in to mycampus, you have direct access to the menu item “My services”:

• PRIMUSS
• Moodle
• your university e-mail inbox, and much more.

We have summarized here what options the individual online services offer you and how you can find our services on mycampus.

The PRIMUSS portal contains all the functions you need to organize your studies.
Via PRIMUSS you can:

• retrieve and print out your certificate of enrollment
• complete the enrollment for electives in your degree program
• Register for exams
• view your exam results and grades and create a grade sheet
• re-register for the next semester
• Enter address changes
• register for university sports courses
• and much more.

The Moodle learning platform gives you access to lecture notes from lectures, seminars and tutorials.
It is also the ideal place to carry out group work digitally.
In your course-specific introduction at the start of the semester, you will receive an introduction to using Moodle.
A short digital introduction is also available on Moodle itself.
If you have any questions about specific course access (enrolment key) or specific course content, please contact the teacher responsible for the relevant course.
You can also find the link to Moodle under “My services” in mycampus.

Once your student user account has been activated, a university email account with your personal email address will automatically be set up for you.
Your e-mail address is usually structured as follows: vorname.nachname@stud.hs-coburg.de.
You can send your e-mails via the university’s Outlook web access https://outlook.office.com .
Note: The login name when logging in is “Your username@hs-coburg.de” (not your e-mail address).
You can find further information on our student portal my campus.
Please check your emails regularly.
You will receive push notifications as soon as there is new information about your studies on mycampus.

Microsoft Teams is available to make it easier for you to communicate with your fellow students.
The most important functions are

• Sending and receiving confidential messages
• Direct messages from person to person
• Topic-related closed groups
• Fast file exchange
• Audio/video chats in groups or with individual (also external) persons
• Alternative to using private messengers

Login: https://teams.microsoft.com ( login name is“Dein Nutzername@hs-coburg.de”) Further information can be found on the IT Service page and on our student portal mycampus.

You will need the certificate of enrollment as proof for the child benefit office or health insurance company, for example.
You can print this out yourself as soon as you have activated your student user account with us.
Log in to the PRIMUSS portal with your access data (user name and password).
There you will find the certificate of enrollment under “Certificates”.

Coburg University of Applied Sciences has its own university WLAN.
The WLAN access is: “HS-Coburg”. Here you can log in with your username and user name.
The password is the same as for your user account.
In addition to the university WLAN, there is also the option of using “Eduroam”.
Further information on the respective WLANs and how to set them up can be found on the “WLAN/VPN” page of IT Services on mycampus.

The degrees at the universities are staggered: The Bachelor’s degree is the first academic degree.
It should already qualify you for a career.
University graduates with a Bachelor’s degree can immediately go on to study for a Master’s degree(consecutive Master’s).
Alternatively, they can first gain practical experience and then begin a Master’s degree course – usually part-time – which builds on the knowledge gained in the job(continuing education Master’s).
The Bachelor’s/Master’s system replaces the former German Diplom degree.
The changeover to Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees is intended to ensure that degrees are internationally comparable.

So that students can estimate the workload for individual modules, the various modules are linked to so-called ECTS points or credit points.
ECTS stands for European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System.
All European universities work with this system.
The aim is to make the amount of work involved in studying in Europe comparable.
Over the course of a seven-semester degree course, each student earns a total of 210 ECTS.
ECTS or credit points are not grades.
They only indicate how many modules you have already completed.

The term “student council” refers to the student representatives (SV) in a faculty.
The Student Parliament brings together student representatives from the entire university.
Both the student council and the student parliament are elected directly by the students in the university elections.

A faculty combines several degree programs and research institutions in a particular field of knowledge.
It is headed by a dean.
At Coburg University of Applied Sciences, for example, there is the “Applied Natural Sciences and Health” faculty with Bachelor’s degree courses such as Integrative Health Promotion or Bioanalytics, or the “Design” faculty, which combines the Bachelor’s degree courses in Architecture, Interior Design, Integrated Product Design and Civil Engineering.

Fellow students are the other students who are studying at the university.
Lecturers is a collective term for all teaching staff at universities.

In contrast to a tutor, who is responsible for specific subject-related content, a mentor is someone who provides support as a personal contact person and is on hand with their experience.

A degree course is divided into several modules, each of which consists of coordinated courses (lecture, exercise, laboratory practical, seminar) and thematically summarizes a subject area.
A distinction is made between compulsory modules, which must be taken in any case, and elective modules, in which you can choose from a range of predetermined options.
There are also elective modules.
Here the choice is very free and you can often even choose courses from other subjects.
Modules are usually graded and awarded a fixed number of ECTS points.
A description of the modules of a degree program can be found in the respective module handbook, which can also be found online on the degree program pages.

The standard period of study indicates the period of time in which you should ideally complete your studies.
It is set for the individual degree courses and is usually seven semesters for the Bachelor’s degree at Coburg University of Applied Sciences.
(Exceptions: Architecture and Interior Design with eight semesters).
The duration of the Bafög is usually linked to the standard period of study.

The course is organized in semesters (= half a year).
The winter semester at Bavarian universities runs from 01.10.
to 14.03., the summer semester from 15.03.
to 30.09.
University semesters are all semesters in which a student is enrolled at a German university, regardless of the course of study.
This means that the number of university semesters continues to increase even after a change of subject or university.
Subject semesters, on the other hand, are the semesters that students are enrolled on a particular degree course.
The number of subject-related semesters starts at zero when changing degree programs.
Some universities also use the term ” study semester” or “examination semester”.
They refer to the student’s performance level based on the respective study and examination regulations.
During a semester of leave, the student status remains the same, but examination obligations are suspended.
Semesters of leave are granted, for example, in the event of illness, parental leave or caring for relatives.
The semester of leave must be applied for in due time via the PRIMUSS portal.
The University’s Student Affairs Department can answer any questions regarding the semester of leave.

Coburg University of Applied Sciences is legally obliged to demand payment of the semester fee from its students.
The university then pays this fee to the Studierendenwerk Oberfranken.
The semester fee is currently 133.55 euros.
It is made up of

• Student union fee: 72,00 Euro
• Semester ticket: 61.55 euros

With the semester ticket, you can travel free of charge on certain forms of public transport.
More information: Semester ticket From winter semester 2024, the semester fee will increase as follows:

• Student union fee: 72,00 Euro
• Semester ticket: 65.02 euros

This will result in the following semester fee: 137.02 euros.

The study and examination regulations (SPO for short) contain guidelines and rules on the structure of the degree program, its content and objectives.
They also specify which modules must be successfully completed for the desired degree and the weighting of the examination grade in the final grade.
In addition, deadlines for taking examinations for the first time and the right to advance can be specified.
This means that students may only advance to a higher semester if they have successfully passed certain modules.
Students who simply let deadlines for taking examinations pass will receive a so-called “deadline five” and the examination will be deemed to have been failed.
Examinations may not be repeated an infinite number of times and there are specifications, for example, for the number of third examinations.
Students should be familiar with their respective SPO.

SWS stands for SemesterWeekHours.
One SWS lasts 45 minutes – the same length as a school lesson.
If a subject has two SWS per semester, this means that you attend this subject for 1.5 hours per week.

A tutorial is always a voluntary course that is not led by a professor, but by a student from a higher semester, the so-called tutor.
In a tutorial, the content of a lecture is discussed and practiced.
At Coburg University of Applied Sciences, there are subject tutorials (tutorials for certain compulsory courses in the respective degree programs).

A lecture is a course in which a professor imparts knowledge to a large number of students, usually face-to-face.
In an exercise, the knowledge imparted in the lectures is practiced.
For example, exercise sheets are worked on or open questions are discussed.
An exercise therefore always has a smaller group size.
In a seminar (seminar-style teaching), course content is worked on in smaller groups.
The knowledge is not only taught by lecturers, but also developed together with the students.
In an internship, the focus is on the application of theoretical knowledge in practice.
A distinction is made between internal internships in the university’s own laboratories and internships at external companies or organizations, where students get to know their future working life.
Many degree programs at Coburg University of Applied Sciences have a mandatory internship semester in the
4th or
5th semester.