Experience in Potsdam University, Psychology, Germany by Nina

Generally, what is Potsdam University like?

The University is divided in 3 campus that are all well connected by public transports. The University is probably one of the smallest, compared to other schools in Germany. Therefore, it is easy to have a good personal contact to professors and freshmen support. There are no tuition fees but still quite good quality in most areas.

What are the facilities like?

The historical campus has a lot of old buildings while the others provide mostly new ones. In all you can use modern technologies as internet, printer, online services and e-learning. The student card can be charged with money so that it works as a mean of payment for transport ticket in one.

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What are the tutors like?

The professors of the Psychology department have all a quite long experience in teaching and use e-learning to facilitate the classes. Of course, there are ones with a more or less student friendly teaching method, as well as the difficulty of exams depends on the professor, too.

Does the University organize activities; what are they like?

There are weekly newsletters by e-mail with offers for activities, as well as a lot of flyers in the University.

They also provide a good sports programme for little money and a special student service for each department (Fachschaftsrat in German).

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Do you think the teaching is of a high quality?

Usually, the professors provide the presentation slides some days before the class so that it is possible to print them in advance. With that method it is easy to decide whether to go to class or not and to take additional notes.

The tuition is very democratic with focus on self-organisation and treating students as adults and not as pupils. In Psychology, you will have mostly theoretical classes with one or two practice courses per semester. There is only one exam per subject per semester where you have to learn the most by heart. Therefore, in the practical classes you have to do homework or one presentation per semester as well as a monograph. All in all, for 30 ECTS per semester you will spend 18 to 20 hours in the University per week.