FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

This FAQ answers many important questions about starting your studies.

Frequently asked questions about the beginning of your studies:

If you have questions unanswered by the FAQ please feel free to call, mail or to visit us. Our contact data is located on the right hand side of this page.
Here (opens in new tab) you can find short directions.
Please bear in mind though that we will not be able to tell you whether you'll get that letter or grade you are waiting for soon or not. We do not grade your exams and do not mail the university letters.

Yes you can and should. The applications period is long enough to make a decision in ease where you want to go and kindly cancel your other acceptance.

The Studentenwerk offers counsel on BAföG

The admission test for our Master's programme is based on the basic principles of the courses offered in our Bachelor's degree. It is a written examination of 120 minutes, which assesses the knowledge of the following subjects:

- Technical Mechanics

- Thermodynamics as well as heat and mass transfer

- Machine elements and mechatronics

- System theory and control engineering

- Measurement technology, sensors and statistics

- Numerical calculation methods

- Technical fluid mechanics

The level of difficulty of the exercises is determined by the task in hand, and in some cases also by the written exams, whereby the focus is on understanding.

Of course the tasks are adapted to the scope of the exam and have to be solved with preparation. However, the examination should not be underestimated, as the applicants should prove whether they have a level comparable to that of our Bachelor graduates. In preparation for the examination, we highly recommend a visit to our learning centre (http://www.fs.maschinenbau.tu-darmstadt.de/lzmb/), as there are both scripts as well as old exams and transcripts of the bachelor examinations. We do not have an old exam of the admission test itself, so you have to look at the subjects separately.

A detailed description of the admission requirements and the examination can otherwise be found in §17a of the Study Regulations for the Master's Programme (under Study Regulations 2014).

For foreign Students, as well as PhD-Students and Professors there is furthermore the possiblity, to ask for help at the Wohnraumservice (Housing Services) of the TU Darmstadt. Therefore you need to fill this form:

https://www.wohnraumservice.tu-darmstadt.de/formular.php?l=en

They may help you with your search. However, do also try to search for a decent flat on your own using housing websites or local newspapers.

Good luck!

There is no stipulated internship before your begin of studies. However, we strongly recommend to serve the six-week-internship previously. For more information please visit the website of our Internship Office. There you will find the Internship regulations for Bachelor- and Master-degrees (study conditions from year 2014) (opens in new tab) . Therein you will find information on topics and formality you have to meet.

A list with companies where other students already completed internships is available on the website of the study hall mechanical engineering . It is composed by feedback from students but shall only be an example. There are nearly endless possibilities for internships.

Here you can find a floor plan to find your room number on campus.
S represents central city (“Stadtmitte”), L stands for Lichtwiese.

Information about the semester fees can be found here.

At the TU Darmstadt we have a student transit pass mediated by AStA and the local transport association RMV. It's valid for all regional trains in the whole RMV-area and the transition area to the transport association NVV. For more information please contact the AStA mobility department.

There are no prep courses from the department of mechanical engineering before studies start. During the first semester we, the student council, offer a supporting math course every Tuesday that is planned to refresh mathematics from school. You will get more information on this during the first week.

However you can participate in an online-prep course from the department of mathematics. Click here for more information.

No. You only have to have received your study documents, among other things your student transit pass. Then you are enrolled to our bachelor program mechanical engineering and permitted to participate in the orientation week.

1st October is the official start of winter term, but lectures do not start yet.

Lectures in mechanical engineering begin in mid of October.

There is no coercion to register for lectures in advance of lecture time. It is sufficient to do this during the orientation week when you get an explanation on how to do this.

If you already want to get a time table, you can find one on our website.

Every half-decent notebook from the last years should be able to execute MatLAB (a mighty computer program) and a CAD-program like Unigraphics NX. But however, there is no need to purchase a notebook that is able to perform all this!
There are enough workstations where MatLAB and NX are preinstalled. Besides this, there are additional practical courses taking place in computer rooms for MatLAB, and for examination sections in the second semester you have to use these computer rooms as well.
So if you invest about 500-1000 Euro you will surely get a suitable notebook. But laptops from two years ago will meet the requirements, too.

When you study mechanical engineering in Darmstadt, you first complete a very general bachelor's degree. You can only specialize in a Master's degree. This has both advantages and disadvantages. In the Bachelor we have almost only compulsory subjects and only a small range of electives in the 5th and 6th semesters. There you can attend lectures such as Flight Propulsion 1, Laser in Manufacturing, Automotive Engineering or Mechanical Process Engineering. The first 4 semesters of basic studies are similar in most directions of mechanical engineering anyway. Technical mechanics, mathematics, physics, materials science, thermodynamics and technical fluid mechanics should be able to every engineer. A special feature of the mechanical engineering course at the TU Darmstadt is that you are guaranteed a master's place once you have completed your bachelor's degree here. With a Bachelor's degree from TU Darmstadt you can also easily get a Master's place at the other TU9 universities – for example RWTH Aachen, KIT, TU Munich or the universities in Stuttgart and Dresden.

In the Master's program, you can then choose more freely and set your study focus. In general, you can deepen everything you have learned in your Bachelor's degree. These include fluid mechanics, aerospace engineering, automotive engineering, production engineering, mechatronics, adaptronics, lightweight construction and framing plastics, metrology, ergonomics, machine acoustics, process engineering, thermodynamics, machining technology and much more.

For example, we have several specialist areas dealing with aerospace topics such as the FSR (http://www.fsr.tu-darmstadt.de/), the SLA (http://www.sla.tu-darmstadt.de) and the GLR (http://www.glr.tu-darmstadt.de). Since the ESA (European Space Agency) is based in Darmstadt, we have some lectures that are held in cooperation with the ESA. Furthermore, our Department of Mechanical Engineering cooperates with DLR and Jeppeson. The focus on production technology has for example been put on PTW (http://www.ptw.tu-darmstadt.de) or PMD (http://www.pmd.tu-darmstadt.de). The process learning factory CiP (http://www.prozesslernfabrik.tu-darmstadt.de) has been in existence for a few years to provide more practical orientation in this area.

Of course, we also have specialist areas that deal with other topics. You can find a complete list here: http://www.maschinenbau.tu-darmstadt.de/fachbereich/fachgebiete/index.de.jsp

Whether you would like to study mechanical engineering here is up to you. I spontaneously decided to study at the TU Darmstadt at that time, mainly because of the good results in the time ranking. Originally I wanted to study shipbuilding, but wasn't 100% sure if it was the right thing for me. I have not regretted my decision. Mechanical engineering is extremely multifaceted and offers many more specialist areas than I could have imagined at school. The general bachelor's degree gives you the opportunity to only make a decision once you have really seen or at least heard about all the areas. For me this was definitely a win-win situation, as I am now doing my master's degree in adaptronics/mechatronics and have completely abandoned shipbuilding. In Darmstadt, for example, the Frauenhofer Institute is also active in this field, which means that we also have very competent professors in this field.

As a student council member, I also talked a lot with people from other mechanical engineering universities at the last Germany-wide student council conference and was able to find out that we have a difficult, but renowned and well-organised mechanical engineering department at the TU Darmstadt. Especially in the student support we are very far ahead, also concerning the integration of the English language into our teaching (in the form of English summaries at the beginning of the lecture and co). As one of the few universities, we also have a civil clause that explicitly forbids research into weapons technology etc. at the university. We even have something similar to an “Ethics” lecture called “Engineers in Society” which introduces us to social responsibility as engineers. Even though I didn't know this before my studies, this fact confirmed me in my choice, but this is probably also a matter of taste.

If you would like to inform yourself about the course of studies in general, please come by. It is usually someone in the Learning Center Mechanical Engineering (and Architecture) L301-99 or in the Student Council Room 72 itself. You can also simply sit down in a bachelor's lecture and take a look at what we do. The material and the lectures are not without it. There is also help with the decision from our study office (Mechcenter). There are regular information events where you can register and get a guided tour of a subject. I recently organised a guided tour at the FSR, where you were allowed to fly in a flight simulator once. At the end of June there is also a taster day for schoolgirls organized by the university in general, which should also be very informative. In addition there is the TU-Day every year.

You can find general information about our orientation offers in mechanical engineering here: Orientation offers

Further consultation possibilities:

These persons will gladly advise you:

You can also get a good overview on the website for people who are interested in studies at the TU.

Enrollment in higher semesters or master degree:

Applicants for the Master's programme must have a valid Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or in an equivalent programme in order to be able to study at the TU Darmstadt. Information on the application and assessment procedure can be found here.

The MechCenter organizes an orientation event for new masters degree students. We recommend you to contact the MechCenter or us for previous advisory service. Just arrange a date via phone or mail.