Learn about exchange at Hochschule Bielefeld – University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSBI) from Hannah Möhring, Incoming Advisor.
Hi folks. My name is Chelsea Hanoun. I’m the exchange and study abroad coordinator for Acadia University and today we have the pleasure of Hannah joining us from the University of Bielefeld and they are the incoming advisor for our students. I’ll hand it over to you.
OK. Hi. Thank you for having me. And my name is Hannah Möhring. I’m the incoming advisor for the students who do an exchange at our university and I’m basically responsible for the life cycle of our exchange students that begins with the nomination with your application to our university.
And then the arrival, everything to do with um administration is also my topic and then hopefully I will also prepare you on your departure in the next few minutes. I would like to introduce you to HSBI. There’s a lot to be said about our university, but I will just
Give you a little bit of an overview. here you can see our university from a bird’s eye view, and our university is one with a practical approach that means that we do not only have full time studies, we also work with a lot of coal companies and therefore we have
Part time studies where students come to our university and then they go and work in the companies and basically also apply what they learned at our university directly in the companies We definitely have study format for students who like to learn by the book, but we also have a lot of experimentation
We have practically approaches for everybody so that’s why our University of Applied Sciences is a university where you can find a very different kinds of students. Most of our graduates find work within two or three months of graduation which in our society and growing weaker economies
Is really a very good thing and we are very proud of that. We are very international We work together with 150 partner universities worldwide and our university is in a city that is very safe, especially with growing unrest
In all of the world and we are very proud to be the second safest city in Germany Yes, I had the pleasure of visiting Bielefeld in person October 2023 and the campus was beautiful and of course the exploring the town was of course amazing as well.
I will tell you a little bit about our university, about the facilities there, about our faculties and the locations and I would also like to tell you a few things about our international activities at HSBI. I want to start with a picture of our Presidential board
Because even though they look quite official on this picture, all of them are very approachable and that is one thing that we would like to tell everybody who comes here as well Most of our staff and our lecturers go by first name basis
And if there is a problem, if there is an issue that you cannot solve, your professors and all our staff on site are more than happy to listen to you and to find the right solution to your problem Thanks for letting us know that, Hannah.
I’m sure our students will appreciate that as us very much the experience how to Acadia as well. And so, of course, our university does not have any tuition fee and that means we do not have individual tutors
But we try our best to still be as open and as helpful and supportive as possible and our university has bachelor and master programs that run six to seven or three to four semesters respectively We have a PhD program, but it is only, well, the doctoral program is in the making
So give us one or two semesters and then we can talk about post-graduate programs as well. And our lectures start in March on September, depending on the respective semester and we offer study programs in German and in English
Plus additional courses in English for our exchange students who come here and study full-time in English. as I mentioned, we have a very practice-orientated qualification I mentioned our experiment halls, but we also have a lot of umm and umm, corporations with local hospitals
I’m going to show you a few pictures in a bit and the corporations that we have in our region always have international branches as well, which means that we are not just a university that offers 1 foot in the door in our national rights corporations, but also international companies and representations.
And when you come to our university, you will find 6 faculties we have designed and arts, engineering and mathematics social sciences, business, health, I mentioned the corporation where the hospitals and our campus in Minden they have civil engineering, practical engineering and architecture.
Though the students that come to us are mostly business students, often we have engineering students as well, and social sciences and those 3 faculties can be found in Bielefeld on our main campus, and you can find you can see a picture of the building that Chelsea visited last year as well.
We have 50 lecture theatres and over 200 seminar rooms and as I said, the faculties engineering and mathematics, social Sciences and Bielefeld School of Business and health are all located in Bielefeld. We have an extensive, also digital library that you can use and all of our university staff that works in administration
Can be found on Bielefeld campus as well. We have something called Experiment school lab which office opportunities for students who would like to have a day to find out what it is like to be a student And so we have corporations with local schools as well,
And they don’t just go to our university to look at the site, but they do little mini experiments as well this way we want to interest young pupils in subjects such as engineering very early on our faculty of Design and Art is about a kilometer away from our side.
It is called Lampingstrasser, and it’s very alternative and so we are very happy to receive designs and media photography students as well. We have locations in Minton, Bielefeld and Gutersloh they are all very close to one another.
Our universities in East Westphalia-Lippe and our university is located in a region that is in northern Westralia. Sorry, the biggest bundesland, so the biggest county or state in Germany We are a middle sized university with a roundabout 10,000 students in all locations together.
Our university is very interested in being a university for everybody so we have institutions within our university that regulate, our university is diverse and tolerant, and we have certifications that are regularly reviewed to make sure that our university remains family friendly, that we move more and more to gender equality
And that we have a diverse campus as well. That is maybe also interesting for you, we have a student representation called ASTA and the people or the students who vote for the ASTA always make sure that we have a very diverse representation there as well.
Here you can find one of our corporation partners project called Care Tech OWL, which is held in hospital, just a kilometer away from Bielefeld campus. but if you study engineering, especially practical engineering you won’t just sit at home or in a lecture hall,
But you will definitely visit sites as well to see architecture and engineering in motion that is something that you can study in Minden As I said, I am the incoming advisor and I am very, very happy to welcome over 50 exchange students every semester
We have more than 100 different partner universities across Europe and it’s a great pleasure to gain more and more partners outside of Europe as well and we would be happy to have some students from Canada coming soon When you come to our university, you will be contacted by me first of course
But once you are accepted, at our university, you will also be contacted by a body which is a current HSBI student who knows the campus knows student life and you will be guided by him or her by them in the first few weeks of your arrival
They will contact you by email before you come and then they will be the person to talk and ask the first questions too sometimes even questions you might not want to ask someone who’s older than you would like me
And there are a couple of questions that maybe you wouldn’t want to ask someone working in the university that is definitely a good solution to find to talk to a body and they will not only help you find your way around campus
But they will also help you with a lot of formal things that you need to be doing at the beginning of your studies here and they are also very good way to make friends and to get to know the German culture.
They will, for example, greet you at the station and help you find your way to accommodation, and they will also be part of our freshest weeks, which will be the first two weeks after you arrive at Germany The orientation period helps to get acquainted with student life at HSBI.
It will also help you to deal with all the learning platforms that we have It will assist you in opening a bank account in learning a few bits of the German language and we will also answer any other questions you might have
And we have a lot of free time activities during that time so that you can also get to know your fellow other exchange students And Hannah does a fresher week happen both semesters?
Both. Yes, of course, and it will be the first two semesters in March and the first two semesters in September Sorry, not semesters, weeks, yeah sorry and to give you a little bit of an outlook for our fresher weeks in March it will always begin with an informal meeting
At a local bar or at a local restaurant it will usually involve the bodies and the international students I usually do not come to these meetings because I want to avoid answering many of the formal questions that you will and that that you will ask once the week officially opens.
And this way is very nice and good opportunity to meet your fellow students to meet the other buddy team and to mingle across people who are at your age and then on Monday, we usually have a welcome event that is always the case and we will help you with the campus tour and
Also let your hand through the city a little bit from one station to the other to do a few tasks and get to know the city then we usually have a little bit of, I call it life hack event but it’s neat things to know about living in Germany
Also in Bielefeld, and we have platform training which is just very helpful to know how to get your student ID card and such and you will have the opportunity to create your timetable for the courses during the semester you will have a quick, intensive German course if you would like
It’s only 8 sessions, but you will learn a few bits to get around and then of course we have lots of free time activities like karaoke and zoo visits, city trips, bowling and volleyball tournament and during the semester, we usually do our best to offer one thing per week for everybody,
And some of the things are completely free for you, free of charge for you some of the things that are very has tiny bits of entry fees, but we usually try to make this as accessible to everybody as possible sometimes it’s just walking and hiking, and sometimes it’s
Something like mini golf, which is very popular with Germans for some reason and yeah, we have a wild mix of sports and other things so that you get to know benefit of it When you come to Bielefeld, we offer accommodation or I should say we work together with the local student dormitories so
That we can offer you their accommodation Oh, there we go. Yes. Now, yeah. OK, so we have different types of accommodations, single apartnments two people flats the next year the five people flats are renovated and of course the more people live together, the cheaper the costs
But generally we can say €300 to €500, no €500 is way too much sorry, €300 to €400 a month including all bills and everything, including Internet as well is what you can expect when you come to Germany I’m not quite sure how much that it’s in Canadian dollars, sorry
It’s pretty reasonable to our accommodation prices in Wolfville Yeah, the student accommodation you can see here, all of them are very close to campus walking distance, by the way this one is in a Morgenbreede and it’s very small, but it is also one of the cheapest that you can get
With I think 18 square meters but we have a little bit of a kitchen, there is a shelf, there is a desk, there is a table and of course the bathroom And for the accommodations, Hannah, do students have the opportunity to buy like startup kits with, like kitchen supplies or bedding?
Or should they come with those things? No, everything is included. It’s a furnished room with all utensils that you might need except for towels. So even the bedding in the bed sheets, everything is there, but you need to bring your own towels. And and the last thing I was wondering about the
Accommodations is what is the process for students? Is it guaranteed if you’re exchange student, is it really the message to apply early or if you want to live with a friend? No. We usually make sure that all students receive a place in a
Student dorm without, well, they have to apply for it officially, but the process is we will make you an offer and then the student needs to apply at the student dormitory officially so that they have the student details in their database
And then they need to or you need to pay a security deposit and once that is and that has arrived at the Student Loans system then the student dorm is secured, the accommodation is secured. The only thing that unfortunately is not possible because of the very tight living
Well, it’s a very and very small market for a lot of demand so we cannot offer you the opportunity to live together with a friend and we can see from semester to semester whether there is the possibility to to and to put two people together
But since we always we are dependent on the accommodation that we received from the Student Loans, they have a two year waiting list and they are so kind to leave that aside for our exchange students because it wouldn’t really make any sense for them to wait for two years
So we receive furnished rooms for our exchange students they are always the same and we know what to expect, but this is why it’s difficult for us to say yes of course we can give you a two person flat to share, but since
All of them are very close together and so Morgenbreede is close to Wertherstrasser and all the others and we usually think it’s manageable to live in Yes, and plus it is nice to meet some new people Yeah, it’s usually also single apartments and we have four,
I think four two person flats and five person flats at I cannot say yet because the student dorm has decided to renovate them they will receive a full makeover and I’m sure they are going to look great, but how many of them we receive for our exchange students, I cannot say yet
But I’m quite excited! So the student accommodation in Stenner Strasser used to be the newest one because it was built in 2019 and but now we have one that was finished last year in September and that will be the most expensive one with €358.
So, so far it’s it’s still good with regards to prices because everything else in Bielefeld had has gone up every rent with private landlords so we are happy that we can still cooperate with our student dorm Our student dorm is called Studierendenwerk and they are
Not only responsible for managing living in Bielefeld, but they also offer other culinary spots at our university Studierendenwerk is an organization that is that you can find in every city in Germany and somehow somewhere down the line someone said let’s have one organization
And they will offer places to eat and also places to sleep and and this is what the Studierendenwerk for us is, we have a cafeteria in the main building they have a very limited offer of small warm lunches, but if
You walk 10 minutes then you will come to our main contain and they have vegetarian, gluten-free options and they have options for people that are on a diet meat free and also organic options. And I uh, Vanessa took me to eat in the cafeteria of the main building, and the food was great.
It’s always busy, but and thankfully you can pay with your campus card with the student ID that you will receive and then most of the people that queue are the ones that do not have card so stuff like me, we have to queue. and of course you will receive a student discount back
Speaking of student discounts with your student ID, you will receive a lot of offers throughout Germany, but also Bielefeld that you just need to show a card and then theaters cinemas and museums, but also discos and clubs they will have less of an entrance fee
The one thing that our next door university is quite proud of is their swimming pool in the middle of a campus so the next university just about 15 minutes walk from us is Bielefeld university and we cooperate with them to offer a very big range of sport activities during the semester,
But also in the lecture-free time we of course offer umm, free of charge swimming, but there are a lot of different opportunities to do some sports during the semester at HSBI that have little or no fee attached to them we have yoga, we have, uh, a lot of fights
How how do you call that? fight sports Like MMA or like mixed martial arts Yeah, exactly, mixed martial arts, thank you but we also have, we even have sports that nobody expects to be a sport like E sports or chess, so
I will tell you a little bit more about that in our freshers weeks that and suffice it to say, we have many different sport activities that you can make you can spend your free time on the one thing that we are very happy in summer, there
Are a lot of good things to do in winter term as well but during the summer, we have a campus festival that is quite popular that has started in 2015 and as you can see, it draws a very big crowd It’s can be heard all through the city and
It’s a big music festival that is held on our campus Thank you for your attention I know this was a very general overview but I am very happy to answer any questions by email and if you need to have
A little bit of a talk with me before you come and if you haven’t yet made up your mind you have very welcome to ask for a zoom meeting ahead of your application. Thank you, Hannah, for all that wonderful information.
I have a couple of questions that I’m sure our students would be very keen to know about. One of them is about transportation, like getting around Germany and Bielefeld in particular. What you recommend? Are there any student discounts? We have something called semester contribution
So we do not have the tuition fee, but we have a €300 more or less €300 that is paid per semester and that includes a semester ticket and that is free regional travel through all of North Randall Westralia, each bundesland each state has that
But since North Riverside has the biggest one, you basically get the most out of this because you can travel for free to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Munster, Dortmund a lot of big cities in North Randall Westralia that are maybe also
Known outside of Germany and the way we do it is that we ask you to pay that semester contribution before you come to Germany because then you can fly to Dusseldorf for example and then travel to Bielefeld, free of charge or free of additional charge and yeah
And are there places like in town for like bike rentals? Or how do most people get to campus other than walking? Well, if you take if you live in one of our student accommodations, then you are very close to campus already but we have a tram which most students use
We also have buses and we have something that is called Flow City, which is a bike rental system that has discounts for students who are enrolled at our university and I think you have a small monthly fee one Euro or two
To activate that app and then you can drive around Bielefeld on those bikes as well Awesome, and I know our agreement is primarily with the School of Business and do you know if students were to come take business courses, if they’re able to take courses from other departments as well?
The interesting thing about this is Bielefeld School of Business is our biggest faculty and they are very exclusive so while we can make possible for students who are accepted, exchange students from Bielefeld School of Business to ask in other faculties whether they can, whether they can take any
Additional courses, that is possible the other way around unfortunately not so much because Bielefeld School of Business is very exclusive So it has to do with the fact that they have the most people in the faculty, so they want to avoid, which makes sense, to have overcrowded seminars
Yeah, but it’s usually it’s not a common practice it would be an exception, but speaking from experience that has never been an issue before Good to know. So the students would primarily come specifically for business and take all business course and I know of course there are German language classes that
The students can take in addition to their business classes. Yes. And we have a few English engineering courses as well that students could ask access to when they want to and our faculty of design is very open-minded as well the way it usually works is that there are a few courses that are
Usually held in German, but if there is one student who does not speak German, they switch the whole course so it’s worth looking into that program as well Yeah, that’s quite the accommodation. Well, yes. Well, thank you very much. I think that’s kind of their idea as a faculty to be very
Open-minded to be very diverse and to be different so I think that’s that comes with the job. Well, thank you, Hannah. This was really amazing to share with our students and I will be posting this online for everybody to see and hopefully
Our students will reach out to have follow-up meetings with you as well Thank you so much for having me and again I’m very happy to welcome any of your students on campus soon.