Stories of past visting students

Jaione came for the winter term 2021/22 from Bilbao, Basque Country to visit the University of Würzburg.

"Hi! This is Jaione, a student of Master in Telecommunication Engineering in Bilbao, Basque Country. I came to Würzburg last September, and I am staying here for two semesters.

In the winter semester, I have been taking lectures of the Master in Satellite Communications. The courses I have been taking have been a mixture of both online classes and classes in presence. The theory classes were online (as videos recorded by the professors, in which they taught using the slides of the course), whereas some labs happened in presence.

Regarding examinations, half of the courses I took had written examinations. What I feel about them is that if you have studied and prepared them properly, it’s no problem to pass them. The other two exams were oral. One of them was a programming exam in which the aim was to understand and to be able to explain the behaviour of some codes shown by the professor. The last exam I took was an oral exam of a group project.

The feelings I have so far about the university are quite similar to those about my home university. The University of Würzburg is challenging, as my home university. However, that also makes you study during the whole semester and acquire knowledge that, in your future career, will definitely help a lot.

Another interesting thing the university offers are German courses. I have personally attended an intensive course in September, a less intensive course during the winter semester, and now I am about to finish another intensive course that has been held in March. As an Erasmus student at the Uni, I can take them for free. I feel that I have really improved my German – a fact that I feel is really important, knowing that I will be living in Germany for a whole year.

Speaking of the city – it is the best place to come to study. Würzburg is full of students from every corner of the world, which makes it a really open-minded place. It offers a wide range of possibilities both in the winter and summer semesters.

Overall speaking, I do not regret at all having come here to spend the last year of my Master’s study and I am really looking forward to my next semester in Würzburg :-)"

Danylo came from Lviv, Ukraine, to the University of Würzburg for the summer term 2020.

"Hello, I am Danylo, a computer science student from Lviv, Ukraine.
I had a wonderful time as exchange student at JMU. I got aquainted with JMU through an exciting course on Algorithmic Graph Theory at my home university. The course was taught by a professor from Würzburg University. Therefore, when I saw the JMU Computer Science program as an option for an Erasmus exchange, I decided to apply. I was quite impressed by the list of courses one can take here. It will probably serve any wishes one may have, but be careful, it is easy to overestimate your capacity since courses are rich in content.

Overall the courses are well-composed and encourage you to go into depth. The exam-centered grading approach at JMU promotes responsible, self-planned studying, which I enjoyed although this didn't use to be my strong suit.

Though the program is great, it is not even half of the experience. You get to live in a beautiful lively city, in a dormitory that might be (as mine was) surrounded by meadows. And there are lots of rabbits running around! The campus is next to vineyards. Everyday I would enjoy a walk or a run there and relax after intense studying sessions. The local architecture is wonderful, so another excellent route for a walk would be down to Main river. There, in the city center, you can truly enjoy yourself in a company of great native and foreign students from all around the world. I was planning this semester purely for academic reasons, but regardless what your plan is, don't miss on social life. To back this up, I arrived in Würzburg in the midst of the first covid-19 outbreak. I got sick, and was quarantined.  After the harsh initial lockdown, small gatherings like barbecue with a few friends are some of the best memories I got. Despite the pandemic my professors were nothing but responsive and kind.

In general, just take your time to plan, choose you courses thoughtfully, and you will love it!"

Olha from Lviv, Ukraine, visted Uni Würzburg in the sommer term 2020.

"Hi, I am Olha from Lwiw. From my home university (UCU) I was used to getting graded assignments throughout the semester, from which the final grade is then compiled. In Würzburg I experienced another form of study – exams make up most of the final grade. I think that this promotes responsibility and self-motivation, and I am glad that I got to know this approach during my Computer Science studies at the Universitity of Würzburg.

Another pecularity for me was of course the online semester. Sadly, because of the Corona virus pandemic, I was not able to attend any real lectures on campus. So I attended the lectures via zoom or video from my own room – and still enjoyed them. The professors and tutors made a real effort to make the best out of this semester. For this I am very grateful. They were always available when I had questions. Clearly, studying under these conditions can be more stressful than normally.

In general, I have learned a lot even though I wasn't able to experience the "real" way of studying. The range of topics is very broad at the Institute of Computer Science, and I visited several courses that I wouldn't have been able to take at UCU. It was a great opportunity to engange more in graph algorithms and learn about numerical analysis. On top of that, in the course Machine Learning I learned a lot of useful things for my future job.

I am sure that you can find interesting coures for yourself, and so I recommend you to give a semester in Würzburg a try!"

Joanna from Gleiwitz, Poland, was in Würzburg for the winter term 2019/20.

"Studying at the University of Würzburg was a very valuable experience for me. Although my daily schedule was really tight and in the beginning I had difficulties to adjust my timetable, I met professors who helped and supported me. My stay in Würzburg gave me a chance to see how studying in Germany feels like. There were things that surprised me at first, for example, the idea of having seminars where students give the talks. Or that students in Würzburg (other than at my university in Poland) can freely choose between several subjects and can adjust their timetable by themselves.

What was especially important to me was making international and German friends and talking to people as much as possible. I met fantastic people! Thanks to them, I managed to improve my German language skills and I got to know the German culture as well as other cultures. It was very interesting for me to discover cultural differences. Whenever I could, I went out and enjoyed the city life in Würzburg. It is a beautiful town, which offers a variety of events and festivals, e.g., the Festival of Street Musicians or the Christmas Market. Besides, I visited some cities nearby. I experienced living on my own and being responsible for myself. Because of this, I learnt some lessons for life, and I grew as a person.

I enjoyed a lot the time that I spent in Würzburg. I am really happy that I got the opportunity to take part in an Erasmus exchange. I would definitely choose Würzburg again, and I recommend studying in Würzburg to everyone!"

Kamil from Krakow, Poland, was in Würzburg for the summer term 2019.

"Studying in Würzburg was an amazing experience. My university has an Erasmus contract with Julius Maximilian University Würzburg, so I decided it would be a good chance to improve my German and try something different. I took 6 courses in total, so my daily schedule had already been arranged well by the University. However, there was still time to enjoy summer in the city, which is full of festivals, sights and great wine. The local organization for international students and the region itself offered many ways to spend the free time actively. Among the things that surprised me at the university was the fact that the attendance at all of the courses is not obligatory and there are no midterm exams – this way students have the opportunity to set their own pace of studying. Another interesting fact was that so many current students taught their fellows at exercise classes and they did it really well. During those four months I met many people and spent a great time with them – I can highly recommend this city to everyone!"

Khrystyna from Lviv, Ukraine, was in Würzburg for the summer term 2019.

"Being part of the Erasmus program is definitely a valuable experience. It’s a chance to broaden your mind, to be a part of another country while improving your technical skills. I was surprised by the hospitality of the University of Würzburg, beginning from the International Students Office to professors. Everyone was ready to help, to understand my situatoin and to support me.

The lectures were interesting and up-to-date. Apart from theory, we were able to see use cases in practice. The educational process is somewhat different from ours. We don’t have such a lot of material, but we have more questions in the exams.

Würzburg is a nice city to visit and to live in. If you haven’t been here before you should really come and explore it! Besides studying, I decided to travel because it’s cheaper from here than from Ukraine, and within Europe we do not face long passport controls as on the Ukraine–EU border. That’s why it is much easier. If you book in advance, you can really fnd cheap prices. I would strongly recommend knowing at least German basics: to be able to build at least an understandable sentence and understand someone. I had several situations when I had to switch on German. There were no problems in the city administration, the University, and with the health insurance."

Yurii from Lviv, Ukraine, was in Würzburg for the summer term 2019.

"Hey,

I am Yurii and I had a great time as an Erasmus student here at the University of Würzburg. To begin with, a German course was really beneficial and fun. I was lucky with the teachers, who told us not only about the grammar but also about German traditions, celebrations and customs. There were lots of games and activities during the class. They helped me to improve the foreign language efficiently and painlessly.

My main studies in computer science were also profitable. The material covered was clearly structured. The grading system was different from the one used in my home university. In my opinion, it helped me to learn the subject rather than simply "collect the points". Quite a few topics were recent and looked promising to put efforts into. The seminar format was also new to me. I've never gone through a tough mathematical paper and given a scientific presentation before. However, some courses seem to lack practical implementation assignments, which would be a good way to learn or practice some programming language, deepen the understanding of the topic or even apply the gained knowledge and help others.

All things considered, I was happy to work with prof. Wolff and Lehrstuhl für Informatik I in the University of Würzburg. Hope that the cooperation between our universities will develop and prosper."