Mobility Semester Bachelor Architecture
A compulsory mobility semester is planned in the 3rd year of study (usually in the 5th semester). It can be completed either as a semester abroad (study visit to a university abroad) or as a practical work placement (internship) in Germany or abroad. Internships are therefore also possible in an architectural office in the local area, e.g. in Erfurt, Jena or Weimar.
The mobility semester is concluded with a documentation. This final report and the preparation for the mobility are assessed to the extent of 3 CP.
Study achievements at another university in Germany or abroad must comprise at least 21 CP and a maximum of 27 CP. This includes a design work with at least 9 CP.
An internship is recognized as coursework, provided that at least 21 CP are proven by the hours worked. 30 working hours correspond to 1 CP. A maximum of 27 CP can be recognized as coursework.
In order for the internship to be recognized, a signed certificate from the internship office is required, on which the type of activity and the hours worked are noted. The internship can be completed in the following typical fields of activity of an architect:
Of these 8 fields of activity, work in at least 4 areas must be verified by the internship office.
Students can propose an internship themselves. This must be discussed with the potential internship provider (architecture firm, etc.) and then confirmed by a professor from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism on the mobility registration form (see below). A contact list of possible internship offices can be found on Moodle under the course/room name “Internships in the Bachelor of Architecture mobility semester”.
Advertised internship positions can also be found on the message board or the Careers Service job portal.
Procedure and Preparation
1) Before the start of the partial study program or internship, an application for mobility must be submitted to the Examination Office (by post, by dropping it in the white mailbox in front of the Dean's Office, by e-mail to pruefungsamt@archit.uni-weimar.de). In the case of an internship or part of a degree program at a host university with which no partnership agreement exists (free mover), confirmation must be obtained from a professor. The following form must be used for this purpose:
2.) Proof of the duration and content of the internship is provided by the Internship Office. The internship must take place under the supervision of an architect / chamber member authorized to submit building plans (or equivalent according to the regulations of the respective country). The following form is to be used as proof:
Recognition of the mobility semester
After completing the mobility, a report on the experience gained, including brief documentation of a project completed during the internship or part of the course, must be prepared.
In order for the internship to be recognized as academic achievement, confirmation must be obtained from the supervising professor. For this purpose, the experience report and the internship certificate (according to point 2.) must be submitted. The following form is to be used for confirmation by the professor:
After the partial study program, the "Certificate of Partial Study Program" (see below) must be submitted to the professorship that originally nominated the student for the partial study program. The completed experience report (including project documentation), the learning agreement, the transcript of records and any other required evidence/documents must be submitted to the professorship as attachments. The professorship certifies all partial achievements completed during the mobility semester on the form mentioned. The additional signature of a suitable design professor with regard to the subject matter of the design taken in the partial study program must only be obtained in the event that the "sending professor" or the supervisor for the partner university is a lecturer who is not able to assess the design (e.g. a purely academic, non-design person).
Options: be elsewhere for longer
In addition to the mandatory mobility semester, it is possible to use an additional semester for an internship or (extended) partial studies. This makes it possible, for example, to study abroad for a full year. For the semester that is not the mobility semester, a semester of leave can be applied for at the Campus.Office (also possible online). Please note: Credit points (CP) can be awarded for partial studies abroad during a further, voluntary semester abroad (e.g. recognition of a draft as a 5th core module), but not for a voluntary internship. An internship can only be credited towards the degree program if it is completed as a mobility semester.
Automatic re-registration for examinations in BISON also takes place during a registered semester of leave, so that participation in subsequent and repeat examinations is possible. As in regular semesters, students can withdraw from examinations in BISON within the deadlines set for this purpose. The deadlines can be viewed online on the website of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism.
For voluntary semesters abroad, there are no additional 3 CP for the preparation and follow-up of the mobility. As part of the recognition process, individual courses from abroad are assigned 1:1 to courses (subjects, teaching areas) in the Bachelor's degree program in Architecture: Only courses that are provided for in the curriculum according to the study and examination regulations, that are equivalent in terms of teaching content and scope and that have not already been completed by the student can be credited.
It is not possible to retroactively swap courses that have already been completed with courses abroad, even if the grades from abroad are better.
The 5th core module can be taken abroad, but the thesis must be written in Weimar.
Follow-up and repeat examinations during the mobility semester
As the mobility semester counts as a regular semester, BISON automatically re-registers students for examinations that they did not take in semesters prior to the mobility semester (illness, withdrawal) or that they did not pass. Students therefore have the opportunity to take re-examinations and repeat examinations that take place during the mobility semester. This is useful, for example, if a semester abroad or internship ends well before the start of examinations in Weimar. If this is not the case, or if students would prefer to take subsequent or repeat examinations in a later semester, students must remember to withdraw from the examinations in BISON themselves. Please note the deadlines provided for this (available online on the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Studies website).
Internships before your studies, during the semester break or as a job during the first semester
If you have already completed an internship in an architecture firm before your studies, this cannot be recognized as a mobility semester for your studies. The same applies if you work in an office during the semester break or if you work in an office throughout your studies: All these variants - and similar constructions - cannot be recognized as mobility semesters for your studies.
This is because the mobility semester is an independent, closed semester, the learning objectives of which can only be achieved if students already have a range of basic subject knowledge acquired in the previous semesters.
For this reason, the mobility semester - as an internship in Germany or abroad or as a semester abroad at a partner university - is usually completed in the 5th semester. Occasionally, some students postpone it to the 6th semester. In exceptional cases, it can also be completed in the 4th semester.
In terms of time, the mobility semester does not have to coincide exactly with the lecture period of a semester; it can even cross semester boundaries as long as the core phase (main period) is within a semester. This means, for example, that an internship or a semester abroad can start in September or even at the beginning of November, and end in December if it starts early, or at the end of March if it starts later.
In addition, for quality assurance purposes, the approval of one of our faculty's design professors for the internship you have found is required before the start of the mobility semester (see above).
Finally, certain tasks must be fulfilled during the internship if it is to be recognized as a mobility semester (see above).
What is possible, however, is that you can ask a design professor at our faculty before the start of the 5th semester whether you can obtain approval for an internship in an office where you have already been working. If you receive this approval and you continue to work in the office in the 5th (or 6th) semester, your work in the office can be recognized as a mobility semester - always provided that you are allowed to work in the above-mentioned areas of responsibility in the office and the duration of the internship is sufficient for recognition (see above).
If an office cannot offer to employ you for the sufficient duration of the mobility semester, you may exceptionally complete the internship in two different offices. In this case, you must first obtain the approval of a design professor from our faculty for each office. You are free to choose which design professorship you approach. However, you should obtain the approval of the same professor for both offices. The hours worked in both offices will be added together at the end of both internships and converted into credit points (CP; credits) by the professorship. 30 working hours correspond to 1 CP. A maximum of 27 CP can be credited. There should be no more than 40 working hours per week in one office.
Number of courses to be taken or credits to be earned (according to ECTS)
A maximum of 27 credit points (CP; credits according to ECTS) can be recognized in the mobility semester of the Bachelor of Architecture. In addition, 3 points for the preparation and follow-up of the mobility are credited to the degree program. The minimum is 21 CP/credits (according to ECTS), which must be completed during the semester abroad (plus the 3 points for preparation and follow-up work). This range of 21-27 CP takes account of different local conditions and also aspects such as language requirements.
However, it should be noted that if less than 30 CP (27 + 3 CP) are completed during the mobility semester, the difference must be compensated for by additional courses in the compulsory elective area. Any missing design work must be completed in the form of a core module. "Surplus" credits in the compulsory elective area from the semesters before the mobility semester can be taken into account. In most cases, however, the missing 30 CP points are completed after the mobility semester.
If the partner university stipulates in its plans that you must complete three additional credits, i.e. 30 ECTS credits, instead of the maximum 27 credits required (according to ECTS), then this applies. This is because we cannot impose any requirements on our partner universities.
In some countries (e.g. Sweden), it is common practice that all exchange students from all countries must take 30 ECTS credits - regardless of how many credits they actually need for their home university. These are the rules of the game. The same applies to the requirement to take certain courses: If the partner university restricts the choice of courses for Erasmus/exchange students or requires them to take certain courses, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar cannot influence this. Otherwise, your study and examination regulations for the Bachelor of Architecture give you a great deal of freedom in terms of course selection during the mobility semester, as long as the courses are essentially in the field of architecture and include a design for which you receive at least 9 credits (according to ECTS) (more on this and language courses below).
There is also no restriction on choosing courses from specific academic years or semesters, unless the partner university requires this. However, it is not recommended to take courses from the first year of study at the exchange university. Also, no courses from Master's degree programs can be credited for the mobility semester in Bachelor's Architecture, even if the exchange university allows Bachelor's students to participate in such courses.
What happens if I do not pass al courses?
If you do not pass all the courses you take at your partner university during the mobility semester, the following applies: Failed courses will not appear in your transcript of records at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, only the total number of credits passed. Grades are not transferred and are not converted accordingly. The courses to be credited must only be passed.
Furthermore, if you do not pass courses during your semester abroad, you can "make up" the missing credits in your degree program at the Bauhaus-Universität by taking courses from the compulsory elective area. If you do not pass the design abroad, you will have to take a design (core module) in Weimar.
Information on choosing courses, taking language courses and completing the Learning Agreement
The learning agreement is generally useful for clarifying the creditability of courses taken abroad for the degree program in which you are enrolled at your home university before the start of a semester abroad.
Here are some important tips for completing the Learning Agreement:
As the contact person in the form (or in a portal for Online Learning Agreements), please enter the contact person responsible for your degree program for stays abroad at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism. For the Bachelor of Architecture, this is the faculty's International Counsellor.
Table A of the learning agreement: Here you enter the courses you would like to take during your semester abroad at the partner university. At the beginning of the semester abroad, you can then use the "During the Mobility" part of the learning agreement if there are any deviations from the original study plan as per Table A. You should limit the choice of courses at the partner university to between 21 and 27 credits, whereby it is important that you take a draft with at least 9 credits (according to ECTS). It is also advisable to take courses (e.g. seminars, lectures) that match the content or methodology of the design topic, if this is possible. This is particularly important if the partner university only offers courses with fewer than 9 credits. In this case, the courses that match the design project in terms of content or methodology can fill up the number of design credits. If the partner university only offers design projects that run over two semesters (annual projects), please ask there whether you can receive part of the credit for your participation in the course after one semester.
If the partner university has not yet published a current course offer for the semester of your planned stay at the time when you should (or want to) complete the Learning Agreement, you can also enter courses that were offered at the partner university in the last or penultimate semester in Table A of the Learning Agreement. You can usually find lists of courses offered in previous semesters on the universities' websites. You can then later use the "During the Mobility" section of the learning agreement to enter the courses you actually took at the partner university.
Regarding Table B of the Learning Agreement: Courses at Bauhaus-Universität: In the Bachelor of Architecture, it is sufficient if you enter "mobility window" in the table, as you do not replace any specific courses at the BUW with specific courses abroad during the mobility semester (provided, however, that a draft with at least 9 ECTS is among the courses taken abroad). For Credits, write 21-27 and in another line of the table write "report (to be completed upon return to Weimar)" and in the same line for Credits the number 3, as you will receive three additional credit points for the experience report that you write after returning from the exchange semester. For the total number of credits at the bottom of the table, write 24-30.
A note on language courses:
During the mobility semester, a language course with up to 3 credit points (CP) can be included in the 21-27 CP you are expected to earn during the semester abroad. The prerequisite for credit transfer is that ECTS credits have been awarded for the course at the partner university, which have been certified on the transcript of records (= course/grade certificate from the partner university) or on a separate certificate.
Examples: If the partner university awards 2 ECTS credits for a language course, 2 ECTS credits can also be credited for the mobility semester. However, if the partner university awards 4 or more ECTS credits for language courses, a maximum of 3 ECTS credits can still be credited for the mobility semester. The language course should also be listed in the learning agreement signed by all parties.
The crediting of a language course with up to 3 CP is also possible if language courses have already been taken in Weimar or during another semester abroad.
A note on the format of Learning Agreements:
Learning Agreements are exchanged between you, the partner university and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar partly in the form of PDFs (or similar file types). This is often done by e-mail, sometimes also by uploading PDFs to certain portals of partner universities. What is new in the Erasmus area is the growing use of portals through which so-called OLAs (Online Learning Agreements) are exchanged. See the Learning Agreement link.
You can also find a PDF template for a learning agreement under the link mentioned if you need one.
The mobility semester is a semester of study
As the mobility semester in the Bachelor of Architecture is a compulsory part of your studies, you cannot apply for a semester off for this period. It is a "normal" semester - and you must of course remain enrolled. This applies regardless of whether you complete the mobility semester in the form of an internship in Germany or abroad or whether you do it in the form of an exchange semester at another university. During the mobility semester, please also remember to re-register on time for the semester following your mobility semester.
As far as a possible reimbursement of the public transport part of your semester fee for the period of your mobility semester is concerned, please enquire online at the Campus.Office at: www.uni-weimar.de/de/universitaet/service/informationen-fuer-studierende
Presentations of the information event
For further information, please contact the faculty's International Counsellor: counsellor[at]archit.uni-weimar.de
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