Transportation

The tuition fee that you pay in order to enroll at the University in the beginning of each semester, includes a ticket for public transportation in region VRR too (VRR is an abbreviation which stands for Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr). By this student-ID-ticket you are allowed to travel with almost every integrated public transport vehicle in between Rhein and Ruhr rivers, which include Bus, U-Bahn, H-Bahn, S-Bahn, Regional Bahn(RB), Regional Express(RE) transportation lines.

You can also travel to neighbor cities such as Bochum, Essen, Duisburg, Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf as well as in Dortmund, of course.

There are also many websites in internet which help you to plan your route to your desired destination.

VRR

DB

Websites offer their services in English too. You just need to fill in your origin and destination addresses to corresponding fields. In a few seconds more than one travel options will appear on your screen. You may choose one of them considering travel time and vehicles.

Bank Account

Having a bank account is very practical and necessary in order to arrange your financial incomes and expenditures, and with a cash/ATM card you can withdraw money from cash machines and free yourself from the bank opening hours . If you already have one, which is also available in Germany (e.g. Citibank or Deutsche Bank) then you may keep working with these accounts.

You can pay the rent, health insurance monthly wages and those regular but varying costs, like the telephone bill by direct debit or a standing order debit. They can be taken care of with a direct debit instruction.

Two German banks (Sparkasse Dortmund and Dortmunder Volksbank) run their offices at the campus; however before you open a checking account, you should compare the fees charged by various institutions run out of the campus.

Health Insurance

Students in Germany, no matter where they're from, are all insured with public health insurance companies. First find out whether your insurance at home will also cover doctor's and hospital fees during your stay in Germany. If not, or if insurance coverage is not sufficient, you will have to take out an additional insurance.

If you’re privately insured, you cover your medical expenses yourself. Then your insurance company will reimburse you. But the hospitals aren’t cheap. Under German law, there is an additional charge, aside from treatment, of € 10 per day for In-patients. However, this is limited to 28 days a year. If the decision is up to you whether or not to go into the hospital, you should first talk with your insurance company. Due to the expense and other formalities, it might be easier to visit a hospital in your home country.

In case of emergencies, dialing 110 or 112 on your phone will put you in touch with an emergency physician. You can dial these numbers free of charge from any telephone booth.

You need a health insurance to enrol at the University. You'll find the following offices located directly at the campus, however there are also several more available in the web and throughout Germany.

Techniker Krankenkasse

The TK bureau at the campus agreed to offer a special service especially for Automation and Robotics. The local office will provide special consultations and brochures in English.

TK Dortmund-Campus

Vogelpothsweg 85

44227 Dortmund

For more information, feel free to contact

AOK

The local bureau of AOK at the campus:

AOK Studenten-Service Dortmund
Vogelpothsweg 78 44227 Dortmund
(Very close to the University Train Station)

They also have a webportal especially for students in this area of the Germany, where you can find information about their services in English and in seven other languages.

Authorities/Registiration

After finding yourself a residence, your first stop should be the Resident Registration Bureau, which is a local authority for the registration of residents in a municipal district. This is where all people have to register (Anmeldung) within one week of moving into a new apartment or home in Germany and remove their registration (Abmeldung) before living the district.

You'll need a copy of the rental agreement or other documented proof of where you're living.

Your next stop The Foreigners' Affairs Office (Ausländerbehörde), which is a govermental authority responsible for issuing residence permits. Students form non-EU countries must apply for a residence permit before the visa (usually granted for three months) expires.

Following documents are needed for Approval:

- Valid visa (for non-EU students)
- Completed application form (available at the univisersity's Office for International Affairs)
- Valid passport
- Proof of health insurance
- Copy of rental agreement
- Three (3) passport-size photos

Accommodation

In order to register yourself to authorities like Resident Registeration Bureau and Office for foreigners' Affairs, you need an official address of correspondence. So first and also one of the most important thing you have to do is to find yourself a residence.

Depending on your personal precedences, demands and needs. There are lots of different opportunities for accommodation. But taking costs and comfort into consideration, dormitories of the University look like the best choice. Although you have to register for that and wait in a queue because of the admission procedure.

University residences are administrated by Studentenwerk Dortmund.

For finding your own place to stay, there are also many other private dormitories, residences, communities and companies.

• Private Dormitories in Dortmund

  Student Dormitory Roncalli-Haus
  Von-der-Recke-Str. 40 44137 Dortmund
  Tel: 0231 / 128013

Student Dormitory Poppelsdorfer Straße 162
Poppelsdorferstr. 162 44137 Dortmund
0231 / 12 60 24 0231 / 18 48 288

Thomas-Morus-Kolleg
Amalienstraße 21a 44137 Dortmund
0231 / 16 06 11

Private Student Dormitory Barop
Herr Schlitze
0231 / 71 98 86

Private Student Dormitory Eichlinghofen
Herr Bucks
0172 / 29 138 58
info@bucks-immobilien.de

• Residences run by Religious Institutions

  ESG http://www.esg-dortmund.de/

  KHG http://www.khg.uni-dortmund.de/

• Flats run by Companies

  Dogewo http://www.dogewo.de/

• Communities (WGs)

  For those who arrive in Germany alone, flat sharing in so-called “Wohngemeinschaften”, is a good way to get to meet people.

  Some links for these communities:

  • http://www.studenten-wg.de/

  • http://www.wg-welt.de/

  • http://www.wg-gesucht.de/

Offers of accommodation are available also on notice boards at the University and in local newspapers.

AStA of University Dortmund offers help for Apartment searching too.

Tuesdays: 16:00 - 18.00 p.m.
Asta, Emil-Figge-Straße 50 (ground floor)

Anne-Christin Lutter
Telefon: 0231 / 755 - 6247
wohnraumvermittlung@gmx.de

And of course feel free to contact to us and your other seniors at the department.

New Webpage for A&R

There is a new web page for the A&R batch, made by the process control laboratory. It seems that Prof Engell also did not like the old web page. The curriculum ist partially updated, but there are still wrong information in it.

Everybody who likes the old more can still admire it linked by the faculty of ET/IT. OK I know maintaining a web page is a hard job.

The new web page is for sure better then the old one. Try by yourself.

http://www.automationrobotics.uni-dortmund.de/

Germany needs foreign specialists

Germany needs foreign workers, the country does not have enough engineers, so it seems wise to hire workers from other countries. Many students like in Automation and Robotics are eager to work in Germany after they finished their Master. To do that very good knowledge of the German language is mandatory, but there is a second obstacle that makes it very difficult to work in Germany for a local company. The immigration law (German) from 2004 makes it difficult for foreigners to work here, because the "Agentur für Arbeit" claims that a employee is only important if he/she earns more than 84,000€. No German company will pay that to a beginner, even with a PhD.
Some people told that it still is possible, but I do not know more about this. Does anybody of you have different or same experiences or know some foreigners who are allowed to work in Germany? Please comment or mail us.

Source: Tagesschau (German)

Council Meeting of Automation and Robotics

02.05.2007

Subjects of Meeting

• Formation of work group instead of student council
• Advantages are having our own money and less formalities
• 50€ per semester + additional budget for special activities such as orientation tutorial for new batches and meetings with barbecue parties (expenditures should be proved by documentation)
• There will be a meeting with ET/IT each year
• Malte and Jeronimo will be elected for Board of Examination to represent work group of AR

The full protocol can be seen here.

Please try to attend the next meeting…

Results for Computer Systems are out

The results for Computer Systems are out and can be found here. The results are poor, but the exam seems to be easier then the first one. The reasons for this are unknown, so if you did this exam and you know what went wrong in your exam, please comment or mail.

Workgroup instead of council

Yesterday, in a meeting with members of the Fak-Rat of the department of Electrical Engineering, they offered us the status of a work group as part of the student council FS/IT. We will have our own money and can make our own decisions, but we do not have the problems regarding a council, like regulations (in German). After a meeting of our council members we decided to enter negotiations with them and composed a mail (see below for the text of this Mail). Their suggestion could save us a lot of working time, which we then use to support you and especially preparing the arrival of the new students. After the end of the proceedings we will make another meeting of our whole batch, to get your confirmation.

Dear members of FS ET/IT,

As per our meeting with members of the Fak-Rat on 16.04 2pm, we put forward your suggestion about founding a work group instead of a student council in front of all A&R student representatives. After the discussion we agreed upon a forming a work group for A&R. We still have some concerns about the exact rights of this work group and the distribution of money, name of our group etc. We would like to discuss this in another talk.

Thank you very much for your suggestions and support.

Best Regards

Student Council Automation and Robotics