FAQ

The number of courses depends on your home institution’s requirements. We recommend a workload of 20 to 25 ECTS credits which corresponds to 3 to 6 courses per semester.

Subject to prior agreement with the teachers, exchange students who need additional ECTS credits in certain courses have the possibility to obtain more ECTS credits through additional coursework and/or examinations (e.g. presentations or term papers). Please ask the teachers directly in the first week of the lecture period and take note of the information provided in the course catalog.

Psychology:

Courses in the Bachelor are all offered between the 1st and 3rd year. Courses in the Master thus start in the 4th and 5th year. We do not use numbers or codes for our courses, but there are course names (for example O1, M1). These course names are composed of a letter, for example H and a number for example 2, which in this case means Seminar H2: Selected Problems in Biopsychology and Neuropsychology (PO 2021); Selected Problems in Biological Psychology (PO 2017): Neurobiology of Trust.

Political Science and Sociology:

Courses in the departments Political Science and Sociology do not have module numbers. As a rule, the titles of the courses at the bachelor’s level include the description “Introduction to...” or “HS selected topics of ...”. Introductory courses are designed for students in their 1st or 2nd year of study, advanced seminars are attended by students in the 2nd or 3rd year. Introductory lectures do not require any previous knowledge, while students in (introductory or advanced) seminars should have some background knowledge.

Please note that some courses will not be graded. These courses are assessed as passed or failed in the transcript of records. However, if you need a grade, this is generally possible. You may be required to submit an additional paper or take an examination in order to have your performance assessed. Please inform your teacher at the beginning of the lecture period if you need a grade.

Our grades

1.0 = very good (“sehr gut”) = an excellent performance;

2.0 = good (“gut”) = a performance which substantially exceeds the average requirements;

3.0 = satisfactory (“befriedigend”) = a performance corresponding to the average requirements;

4.0 = fair (“ausreichend”) = a performance which, in spite of its flaws, suffices to meet the requirements;

5.0 = “failed” (“nicht ausreichend”) = a performance which does not meet the requirements due to considerable flaws.

Grades may be differentiated by adding or subtracting 0.3. The grades 0.7, 4.3, 4.7 and 5.3 shall not be assigned. In cases of doubt, the grades shall be rounded down in favor of the student.

Exchange students from other schools may attend courses at the School of Social Sciences that are offered within the context of the University Wide Electives.

Apart from that, exchange students from other schools may only attend courses in Political Science, Psychology or Sociology on a case-by-case basis and under the following conditions:

• if there are still enough free places (in seminars);
• if they meet the necessary requirements (in particular with regard to statistical knowledge); a transcript must be submitted;
• after consultation with the competent exchange coordinator(s)

Please note that there is a difference between course registration and exam registration -> courseregistration ≠  examregistration:

You have to register for all examinations (written exams, oral exams, term papers, presentations, etc.), regardless of whether you had to register for the course itself or not. This means: apart from your course registration at the beginning of your studies at Mannheim you MUST register for any learning performance if you want the final result to be included in your transcript – if you do not register, the final grade cannot be included on your transcript.
You also have to register online for the exams of the German language and culture courses offered by the International Office – please pay attention to the course number when you register! (If you are not sure about your course number for your German course, please check it in your profile in myUniMA).

Registration is done online via portal². After log-in, kindly click on “My Studies” -> “Exam and academic records" -> “Exam registration”. There you will find a detailed description on how to register. In case there is an exam missing or for any other exam-related questions, please send an email to Student Services and include your full name, student ID number, and the title of the exam.

Please be aware that you need to pay a fine in case you miss the respective registration period. Thus, if you register for exams after that period you have to pay a fine of €10 per exam! You need to pay the fine at the Express-Service in L1,1 (ground floor) first, and then register for the exam.

Only by registering within the general registration period, can you avoid a clash of exams. Exam times and rooms will be announced by mid-November.

Please note that the registration periods for block seminars or midterms might vary! For those courses, please pay attention to what is announced during the lecture.

Examination dates will be announced mid-May or mid-November.

Examination Dates

Kindly take note of the exam regulations regarding late exam registration and withdrawals.

If you fail to pass an examination in Mannheim, you usually have to repeat the examination on the alternate examination date. If it is not possible to take the examination on this date, you can repeat the examination at your home university under the following conditions:

• your university is located outside of Europe
• an academic or non-academic staff member at your home institution will supervise the examination
• you will not spend another semester in Mannheim
• you did not pass the examination on the regular examination date or were unable to take the examination due to health issues (in this case, a medical certificate is required)

In order to register for a re-sit examination at your home institution, please send an e-mail as soon as possible after receiving your grade to:

1.  “Student Services":

(Advisor for your the related programm) Please enter the following subject: “Exchange student – Registration for the re-sit examination at the home institution” and indicate

• the names of the respective course and teacher
• your full name
• your student ID number

2. In addition, please send an e-mail to the secretaries of the responsible chair, indicating

• the names of the respective course and teacher
• your full name
• your student ID number
• contact details of the responsible exchange coordinators at your home institution

The Erasmus+ Learning Agreement: This applies only to European exchange programs and is needed to receive funding within the Erasmus+ program. The responsible departmental exchange coordinator at the School will sign the Erasmus+ Learning Agreement.

Please note, that the learning agreement will only be signed after the official course allocation in February (spring term) and August (fall term) by the responsible departmental exchange coordinator.

The Certificate of Arrival & Departure will be provided by the International Office and sent to the home university as soon as the relevant tasks have been completed. 

You will need the transcript of records in order for the coursework and examinations you completed here to be recognized at your home institution. This document contains the courses you attended, the respective grades you got, and the corresponding number of ECTS credits.

You can request your Transcript of Records via your Mobility Online Workflow. After your transcript has been created, you will be notified that your transcript is ready for download in Portal². Please forward the verified transcript to your home university. You can check up to 365 days after your disenrollment whether all your grades have been published in Portal². If you have any further questions regarding your transcript, please send a message to transcriptsmail-uni-mannheim.de.

The International Office has compiled all the information you need before leaving Mannheim.

Things to do before you leave