RWTH Welcomes its First-Year Students

The University is well-prepared to welcome its new students – besides the orientation week for freshers, there also will be a consultation session for Aachen residents.

 

The exact numbers of new first-year students cannot be specified as yet, but apparently it will be close to last year’s record number of beginning students. In order to give them a good start into their studies and to provide them with optimal learning conditions, the University has agreed to implement a number of measures:

At the beginning of October, there will be an orientation week for first-year students. One of the week’s highlights is the city rally organized by the student councils. A student team has taken several steps to make sure that the city rally will be a success for everybody involved: the event will be supervised by trained tutors, and there have been meetings between the organizers and the city’s health and safety departments and representatives from the police.

Furthermore, the team has sent information letters to Aachen citizens, and there will be a consultation session for residents, taking place on September 27, 2012, from 4.30 to 6 pm, in the entry hall of the Kármán Auditorium, Eilfschornsteinstr. 15.

Spaces for Teaching, Learning and Living

In order to provide new spaces for lectures, seminars and for study, a new lecture hall center is currently being built. Also, several buildings have been renovated and extended. The new “carpe diem!” software program makes it possible to optimize room reservation and bookings.

As the rush to Aachen's housing market is growing, the city and universities have called for living space to be made available, through the collaborative extraraum campaign. Investors should be particularly solicited to rebuild or remodel buildings. Private individuals are also asked to make free rooms available.

Increased Funding for Faculty and Instructional Staff

Student numbers at RWTH will continue to rise – in the years between 2011 and 2015, the University expects a 10 percent increase in enrolled students. The reasons for this are the military reform and the shortening of time spent in secondary educational institutions, as well as the resulting double class cohort of school leavers (“G8”). To address the situation, the Federal State of NRW provides the university with additional funding in the amount of 198 million Euros. More than half of this sum will be used to hire additional staff for teaching and learning: the university expects to create about 400 new job positions, including 18 new professorships. Part of the funding will be used to finance new buildings, labs and facilities as well as to purchase new equipment and instrumentation.