Exchange report - Student at KI
"Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren."
Home university: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Study programme: Biomedicine (Master's)
Exchange programme: Erasmus
Semester: Autumn semester 2011/2012

Pre-departure

Being addicted to traveling and actually experiencing a new city / country / culture more fully, I tried to go to different places for short periods of time. A few months of internships or exchange semesters here or there. Adjusting to a new place, getting to know a new culture and many different people, learning a different point of view has always been attractive for me. Moreover, being involved in different research projects, meeting with different researchers, taking different courses and learning different teaching styles is definitely an invaluable experience.

Having so many good friends from Germany in the Biomedicine Master's Program, I was convinced that I would like to go to Germany. I chose University of Heidelberg, due to its reputation, possible research projects and the chance of improving my German. In the end, I was in Heidelberg for the third semester of the Biomedicine Master Program.

All through the application and pre-departure processes, I got great help from the representatives of both KI and the partner university. Everything I had to do was listed properly and reminded to me. I did not need to be vaccinated. As I am a Turkish citizen, my biggest problem was getting the visa for Germany. After having so many problems on the way, I was almost convinced that I would not be able to go to Germany! However, in the end everything worked out and I can write my great experience about Heidelberg.

To have a brief list about what to do before departure:
- Visa application - This part is for non-EU students. My suggestion for applying a visa if you have to, is that have enough time before the departure.
- Applying to labs for the research project - One problem I had about applying to the labs was the duration of my project. According to our program at KI, we needed to work for 11-12 weeks. However, my impression from several different labs in Heidelberg was that they wanted students to stay in the lab for at least 6 months, which was too long for my stay. I was first accepted from a lab I really wanted to work but then rejected due to the duration of my project. Even though I have stated the duration of my project clearly from my first email, I guess either making it more obvious or trying to extend the duration to 6 months might help.
- Checking out the courses - Courses are not announced until late summer in Heidelberg. Checking the general outline of the master programs might give an idea about the possible available courses. However, in the fall semester, the courses I could take were only seminar courses. Arranging the courses did not happen before early October, in my case.
- Official papers - Official papers part was as usual and not very difficult with the help of the representatives of both KI and University of Heidelberg.

Arrival and registration

Heidelberg University offers an intensive German course for exchange students before the semester starts. The students can choose to attend the language course or not. I wanted to remember and improve my German before the rushing of the semester starts. However, there are also language courses during the semester.

I came to Heidelberg around one month before the official start. Besides attending the language course, I also started to work on my research project to be able to finish earlier. The planning of the courses and project was mostly to be arranged by me, to be able to fit the semester at KI. In parenthesis, I have to say that the language course in the beginning was also very useful for the social life, enjoying the city, meeting with many people and learning how everything works, and also with the integration process into a new city / life.

Upon arrival, the university helped with most of the official procedures, registration to the university, city or dealing with public transportation, bank account issues. However, coming earlier than the usual start of the semester for the language course, we had to find out how to deal with certain things or how to get information about the city, campus or social activities, ourselves. However, it was manageable. By the time, the main orientation days came, we have figured out most of the things.

Economy

In general cost of living was less than Stockholm. Accommodation, food, drinks were cheaper. For lunch, I was mostly eating in the food court. Eating dinner in the food court is also possible, however cooking at home might still cut the costs down. For going out in the city, following the places with deals on certain days would really help.

Being a Turkish citizen, I had to pay for the visa and residence permit for Germany. The first weeks in Heidelberg also costed more, since I had to pay a student services' fee (66,5 euros) , deposit and rent for accommodation, some small needs of the flat. Since I could not trust myself for biking everywhere, I also bought a semester ticket (138 euros), which was for all kinds of public transportation around Heidelberg for 6 months. I actually used it a lot for the first 1-2 months, until I was convinced that having a bike is very essential in the city. 

Acommendation

Unlike the housing problems I had in Stockholm, finding an accommodation in Heidelberg seemed quite easy to me.  My accommodation was arranged by the university. As one of the several, very helpful information emails I received from the university, I was told I could apply for university housing. By mid august, I received an email about my deposit, approximate rent and moving in date. Unfortunately, not everyone was as lucky as I was in getting student housing. I guess being an Erasmus student gave me a priority though. For the application and moving in procedures, I just followed the instructions I received. And everything went quite smoothly.

 

I stayed in a 4 bedroom-apartment in one of the newest buildings of the campus. The flat was furnished. We had 2 bathrooms, and a big kitchen + living room area. The only things I had to buy were pillow, blanket and sheets. The cost of accommodation was reasonable, around 200-350 euros and cheaper than in Stockholm. The main problem I had in the first week was the internet! In my student housing, we could only connect to the internet in the campus after registering to the university and receiving a username and a password, which only happened around one week later. However, in Star Coffee on Hauptstrasse saved my life. If not for wireless internet, it is still a good place to stop by. Starbucks can also help for the internet problem.

 

Working and living around the campus further from the city (Neuenheimer Feld) , made my life easy, except from the times I wanted to go to the city center. However, having a bike easily solved going to the city center problem. One great advantage of student housing is also being able to get to know more people, especially Germans. To live in the city center, most of my friends looked for accommodation themselves. Even though I never used them personally, the links below can help for the searching.

http://www.eu.uni-hd.de/incoming/wohnen_en.html

http://www.wg-gesucht.de/

http://www.zwischenmiete.de/

Studies in general

I had to take elective courses and a research project for my third semester in the Biomedicine Master Program. 

For the research project, I emailed several professors. It took me long time to finalize the lab I worked, but the process was not any harder or different than at KI. I worked at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Similar to KI, they also had journal clubs/lab meetings in the group and different seminars in the department. My lab was very nice and very German. My German was not enough to talk to them, so my communication language was English. Something different from KI but nothing to complain was the working hours. As a student, I was not allowed to work in the lab without my supervisor at DKFZ or after 6-7pm or on the weekends. Actually thanks to these fixed working hours, I could plan the rest of my day with different courses or sport activities better.

For the elective courses, I could only take the seminar courses in Heidelberg. The courses more similar to the elective tracks at KI were in the spring semester. The seminar courses were mostly held by a lab group, around the special topic of interest. Since not many other students were taking these courses, except a few exchange students like me, the courses were not that defined or organized. Having all the courses very organized and structured at KI, not knowing the exact schedule of seminars was a little disappointing. These seminars were subjected to changes according to the circumstances of the group. On the other hand, they were quite useful covering an article every week with a comprehensive presentation and discussion afterwards. Everyone was presenting 1-2 papers throughout the semester. 

The main disadvantage for me was not being able to get the exact schedule, including the starting and ending dates. Moreover, the semesters of KI and Heidelberg do not really fit with respect to the dates. We needed to present our elective project and start with our master thesis project early in January at KI, whereas the semester in Heidelberg did not end until the end of February. Thus, the main issue was arranging the courses in a way I could come back to Stockholm earlier. However, the coordinator of the program and the professors were really helpful and understanding. By doing a bit of extra work or presenting earlier, I could come back to Stockholm earlier. 

Courses during the exchange period

Courses corresponding to semester 3 at KI
Through my stay in Heidelberg, I had to fulfill 9 credit points for elective courses. I took three courses, which were Journal Club Infection and Cancer (4 credits) , Current Literature in Cell Biology (2 credits) and Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction in Development and Disease (4 credits). All three courses were seminar courses, in which all the students had to present 1-2 papers through the semester. These courses were held once a week, for one or two hours, depending on the credit points.

The Journal Club Infection and Cancer course was a PhD course. It included already determined papers about the topic. The students were able to choose one of these papers. Each course was held by different people. The topic and the paper was introduced by the professors in the area, which was followed by the presentation of the paper by the student. The introduction to the topic before the paper really helped to understand the papers.

The course in Cell Biology was held by a professor in the Cell Biology field. The course was the journal club of the group. Therefore, it was mostly shaped with their specific research interests. However, the choice of the paper was free, still in the area related to the research interests of the group.

The last course was also like a journal club of the research group. However, it included a wider range of topics such as metabolism, stem cells, small regulatory RNAs and bioengineering. The course was more unorganized compared to the other ones, but it was the one I enjoyed the most, about iPSCs and so on. Every student presented two papers from different topics.

Furthermore, in all these courses the students had the opportunity to discuss the paper and presentation with the professors, before presenting.

In general, the feedback for the paper presentations in Heidelberg was less than at KI. However, one could ask for more feedback personally. In addition, unlike KI, the importance given to the presentation style and skills was not that high. The main criteria was to understand and to be able to discuss the paper, which was as it should be. However, I personally also improved myself a lot with the feedback about my presentation skills at KI.

Language and Culture

In University of Heidelberg, the bachelor programs are taught in German, while almost all the courses in the master's program are in English. Studying in English at KI, none of the courses would be a problem in terms of language. However, knowing some German definitely helps a lot for all the university issues, talking to people on the streets or making friends. Dealing everything in English is definitely not as easy as in Sweden! The university offers German courses both before the semester or during the semester. I would suggest the German courses, especially before the semester. The course is very intense and ideal for talking to people around your level and preparing you for the semester.

I did not experience a real cultural clash, maybe also because of my German friends. However, German culture is worth experiencing, especially in Heidelberg, with the people drinking beer anytime of the day even during breakfast, biking no matter how old they are, or being organized and strict about rules, etc.

Leisure time and social activities

Preferring to live in big cities, going to Heidelberg seemed a bit scary to me. I was skeptical that there would not be that much to do. However, I was definitely wrong! Heidelberg is a lively student city, with many things to do everyday. Pub crawls, movies, Erasmus / student meetings and parties, free courses such as sports, dancing etc, special deals in certain bars on certain days,and so on. I would say AEGEE for the international students is much better than Global Friends in terms of organization, having many mingling activities. From the very first days of the semester or the language course, orientation and pub crawls made it much easier to meet with people. For the free or very cheap courses by the university, you should definitely check the schedules from the website of Hochschulsport der Universitat Heidelberg : http://www.issw.uni-heidelberg.de/hsp/

Besides all these daily activities, traveling to other cities, group train tickets for 5-6 people were quite cheap. Excursions arranged by the university (Akademisches Auslandsamt) or by AEGEE were also cheap and so much fun with many people.

Moreover, Heidelberg is one of the very beautiful cities I have been! The night view of the city from the Philosophenweg was one of my favorite things. Furthermore, experiencing the German culture with of course beer, sausages or Christmas markets etc. is definitely worth trying.

Summary

All-in-all, the Erasmus semester I had in Heidelberg was a fantastic experience for me! I improved myself a lot in terms of my career, personality and social life. I improved my German a lot, had a lot of fun, and learned many different techniques in the lab. Being an Erasmus student was being responsible about my studies, studying for the courses and working in the lab a lot, but also balancing these with social life, friends, hobbies and parties. I believe that I managed to make the best out of this opportunity and the memories I had there will stay as one of the best times of my life!