Study

Currently, we have slightly more than 1000 students enrolled in the faculty of physics in Regensburg. They enjoy the advantages of our faculty as there are:

• Excellent support of the students from twenty-five (25) professors and numerous scientific faculty members and tutors.
• Various courses of study, focussed on different topics. A Regensburg speciality is our research program which aims to promote students in approximately seven (7) 7 years from the begin of their studies to their Ph.D. degree.
• Excellent scientific reputation (national and international), with one Collaborative Research Centers and manyfold research collaborations with national and international funding.
• And finally, the ambience of Regensburg, a UNESCO world cultural heritage.

In case you should experience any problems throughout your studies, please contact our faculty's student advisors. They are ready to help you personally for all situations you might encounter! From left to right: Dr. J. Mertins and Dr. Karoline Bernhard-Höfer (Physics and Nanoscience), Dr. S. Solbrig (Computational Science), Dr. C. Maurer (Teacher's Education), Prof. Dr. V.Braun (Head of examination committee)

The structure of the Master course is modular, which means that most of the lectures are organized in entities which - when completed - represent one module. For completed modules one gets credit points (CPs) accounted. The goal is to collect 120 CPs (minimum) within (usually) 2 years.

One needs a minimum of 60 CPs from a broad choice of subject modules, complementary lectures and further specialized courses (see below). These 60 CPs should in general be acquired in the first year. In the second year you enter the research phase, which includes a specialization module (30 CPs) and finally the Master thesis (30 CPs), working in close collaboration with the members of research groups either in theoretical or experimental physics.

First Year

Second Year

Please bear in mind that the application deadlines are as follows:

June 15th if you want to begin your studies in the winter term (starting in october) or
January 15th if you want to begin your studies in the summer term (starting in april)

To be eligible for our Master programme you are required to hold a Bachelor degree in Physics or a similar degree with at least the grade "good" (or comparable, as e.g.: B; Cr; second-class honours; Honour Class II; GPA 2.7-3.3).

If this is the case, we recommend that you download the

application forms for EU residents or
application forms for non-EU residents

as appropriate. These zipped files contain all necessary documents which you are required to fill in. In one of the files you will find a checklist of all necessary items. Please note that an incomplete application will not be considered. If you are unsure about what to do precisely, please continue with our step-by-step guide

Once your application is completed, you should create a compressed file ("your_first_and_last_name.zip") including all files. Please note that there is a size limit of 5 MBytes. Send the compressed file to master.physik(at)ur.de

Please do not hesitate to contact in advance our study consultant, Dr. Jörg Mertins, phone +49 (0)941 943-2088, eMail: joerg.mertins(at)ur.de

The examination committee will accept applications until the deadline is met and then decide in a meeting. You will get a confirmation of receipt usually within 7 working days.

Important note:

Since you sent all the required documents already in the compressed zip file, the committee can proceed and come to a decision, even without the certified copies on paper. Nevertheless, you will be required to present all paperwork needed (certified copies and transcripts) at the time of your enrollment in our University.

If time is critical for your application, you may choose to provide the legally attested copies by regular mail to the secretary of the chairman of our examination board:

Frau Heidi Decock
Fakultät für Physik
Universität Regensburg
D-93040 Regensburg
Germany
Mail: heidi.decock(at)ur.de, Phone: +49 (0)941 943-2006, Fax: +49 (0)941 943-1734

These may arrive later than the deadline, as they are needed for the further processing of your application by our administration after the faculty's decision. If your application was successful, we will forward the documents to our University's administration for further processing, otherwise we will destroy them. Please note that we will not send the documents back, so never supply any originals which you might need again, only certified copies!

You will be informed by email, usually within one month, of the committee's decision. In some cases, if the committee is convinced that important lectures have not yet been attended, additional courses/qualifications will be required. These can be delivered during your stay in Regensburg.

Important: This is not the legally valid final decision, which will come from the University's administration only. It only serves to inform you how the committee decided on your prerequisite for our Master programme, i.e. if you qualified by your previous education.

After the deadline for your application, and in case you have any inquiries about how to proceed further, please contact the secretary of the chairman of our examination board (address given above). Please refrain from inquiries earlier than the committee's meeting, as we cannot answer any questions prior to the final decision. At earliest 4 weeks after the deadline for application the decision has been made.

For questions concerning administrative affairs (rather than the faculty's) you may also consider to contact Mrs. Elli Wunderlich from our foreign student office to help you.

The text below serves to explain what we expect from applicants in more detail - all relevant information is included also in the application forms for EU residents and application forms for non-EU residents.


Please follow these instructions carefully:

1. Download the file ApplicationDetailsEU.zip or ApplicationDetailsNonEU.zip, respectively.
2. Uncompress ("unzip") the archive file using any of the widely available compress/decompress software. In case you are unsure which one to use, you may want to try 7-Zip which is available for Windows free of charge and in many languages. Linux based operating systems usually also provide a compress/decompress tool free of charge.
3. Make sure that you have software available which allows you to open portable document files (pdf). You can search for it using a search engine or try either the Adobe Acrobat reader or the Foxit Reader. The reader should allow you to fill in forms (below).
4. Open the "Application form Master(EU).pdf" or "Application form Master(non-EU).pdf" and fill in the empty spaces. Once completed, save the document for future use (see below).
5. Download this application form of our Central Student Advisory Office and fill it in. Also, provide the required documents (certified copies of certificates, supporting documents, etc.) therein either as scanned files or photos. Make sure they are clearly legible! Save the documents for future use (see below).
6. If you are a EU resident, you may now proceed with point 10 below. Non-EU residents are required to continue with point 7.
7. Open the Checklist_extMaster_Physics_admission_UR.pdf and fill in as complete and careful as possible. If in doubt, which of your lectures compare to ours, consult the text in Contents_Bachelor_Physics_UR.pdf
   (Legal note: This step is not strictly required by law, but you can ease the committee's work a lot by providing this form. This may also help to prevent misunderstandings due to different education systems.)
8. Get two letters of recommendation from your previous professors. We suggest that you show the list of contents of the Regensburg Bachelor in Physics Programme to them and ask them to base their recommendation on the contents of the Regensburg Bachelor in Physics Programme. Scan the letters or take a clearly visible photo of the letters, store the data for future use (see below).
9. Provide a proof of proficiency in English language at a level B2 or better. Scan the proof or take a clearly visible photo of the letters, store the data for future use (see below).
10. You are nearly done! Now open a file compress program like 7-Zip (any other will do as well) and add the files you saved in the previous steps. Make sure that the final file is not larger than 5 MBytes! (size limit for application). If it is larger, try to reduce the scan resolution of your documents, but make sure that they remain legible! Name the compressed file so that the contents may be easily identified. We suggest to use the "your_first_and_last_name.zip" scheme.
11. Send the compressed archive file to master.physik@ur.de. You should receive a confirmation of receipt within 7 working days! If not, the mail may have been filtered out by our SPAM filters. Try to resend the file from a different email account or get in contact with our study consultant, Dr. Jörg Mertins, phone +49 (0)941 943-2088, eMail: joerg.mertins(at)ur.de
12. Congratulations - you successfully submitted your application! We hope to be able to give you a positive reply soon after the committee meeting, about 4 weeks after the deadline has passed!
    Please refrain from inquiries earlier than the committee's meeting, as we cannot answer any questions prior to the final decision.

Important note:

Since you sent all the required documents already in the compressed zip file, the committee can proceed and come to a decision, even without the certified copies on paper. Nevertheless, you will be required to present all paperwork needed (certified copies and transcripts) at the time of your enrollment in our University.

If time is critical for your application, you may choose to provide the legally attested copies by regular mail to the secretary of the chairman of our examination board:

Frau Heidi Decock
Fakultät für Physik
Universität Regensburg
D-93040 Regensburg
Germany
Mail: heidi.decock(at)ur.de, Phone: +49 (0)941 943-2006, Fax: +49 (0)941 943-1734

These may arrive later than the deadline, as they are needed for the further processing of your application by our administration after the faculty's decision. If your application was successful, we will forward the documents to our University's administration for further processing, otherwise we will destroy them. Please note that we will not send the documents back, so never supply any originals which you might need again, only certified copies!

Please note that your admission depends on two stages:

• adequacy of your previous education (decided by the faculty of physics) and
• formal eligibility for a study in Regensburg (decided by the administration of our University on legal aspects).

These two stages are independent of each other, meaning that if you formally qualify for a study, but your previous education is considered not to be sufficient for a successful study, you will not be admitted (and vice versa). To make sure that all administrative requirements are met, please check this site to make sure you provided all the necessary information for our administration. If in doubt, you may also consider to contact Mrs. Elli Wunderlich from our foreign student office to help you.

Once your application is received it will be forwarded to the examination committee of the Physics Master Program whose members will decide about your admission.

The complete and up-to-date catalogue of modules including their detailed descriptions can be found here.

The current examination regulations ("Prüfungsordnung") can be found here. The text is available in German only, due to legal reasons. If you need assistance to understand what it regulates in detail, please contact the study consultant, Dr. Jörg Mertins, phone +49 (0)941 943-2088, eMail: joerg.mertins(at)ur.de

Further help can be found when visiting our University's foreign student office. Here you get specific information on topics such as

• German Skills
• Application / Admission / Registration
• Visa and Residence Regulations
• Finances
• Health Services
• Arrival Information
• Accommodation
• Organizing Your Studies
• Life in Regensburg
• Special Programs for Refugees
• A FAQ page
• A download page for frequently used form sheets

If you have any questions about studying in Regensburg or concerning the application process, do not hesitate to contact our study consultant, Dr. Jörg Mertins, phone +49 (0)941 943-2088, eMail: joerg.mertins(at)ur.de

You may also want to ask fellow students about certain topics, seen from a student's point-of-view by contacting the students council of the physics/mathematics departments.

Here you find the current lecture list