Need help? Right this way, please.

Wel­come to Halle Uni­ver­si­ty! We hope you have a great start. Of course, there will be tons of things to do, which can be quite intim­i­dat­ing: A new city, new peo­ple, new flat. But do not despair! The has­tuzeit has got you cov­ered! This is why we have put togeth­er a fresh­men guide for all things con­cern­ing ori­en­ta­tion and fun.

Part 1: Time from apart­ment-hunt­ing to the end of the semes­ter just flies by. The has­tuzeit guide knows just what to look out for to be off on a per­fect start.

Accommodation

If you have already found a cozy place to stay for your­self or with some friends, you took the first hur­dle. If not, just turn to the Stu­den­ten­werk or “Biete WG-Zim­mer” web­sites, where peo­ple offer rooms for rent. In case you’ve man­aged to secure a place at one of the many stu­dent dorms, you should def­i­nite­ly take care to always keep track of impor­tant doc­u­ments like lease agree­ment, con­tracts signed with your inter­net provider etc. 

You should also reg­is­ter Halle as your place of res­i­den­cy. Fail­ing to do so might result in seri­ous fines that grow more hefty as time pass­es. To avoid such issues, you can book an appoint­ment with the town hall ser­vice sit­u­at­ed at the Mark­t­platz online, which can usu­al­ly be done on a short notice.

Once you’re done, you will have a sol­id base from which to start off your adven­ture into the jun­gle of bureau­cra­cy, can­teens and pub­lic trans­port. Suc­cess­ful­ly fin­ish­ing your stud­ies is your goal, after all. How long you intend on study­ing is of course up to you. In any case, you will not have time for such wor­ries. You’ll need a sched­ule, because your semes­ter is about to begin and you most def­i­nite­ly want to get a spot in a class you would love to attend or in one of the manda­to­ry classes.

In the lion’s data den

Now, you cer­tain­ly know your way around the web, but the labyrinth of studmail, stud.IP and Löwen­por­tal can be quite tough to get through at times. So, let’s untan­gle all that clutter.

First off, we start with the Löwen­por­tal. You will vis­it this page much more often than you can imag­ine. Here you can access your grades, see which exams you passed or failed, and impor­tant infor­ma­tion regard­ing required mod­ules of the com­ing semes­ter. Most impor­tant is prob­a­bly the Mod­u­lan­mel­dung (reg­is­tra­tion for mod­ules). You need to be quick though, there are deadlines!

By the way, you can also print all of your cer­tifi­cates and records here, like your con­fir­ma­tion of enroll­ment and more. A TAN is need­ed for any such action, but more on that later.

The unpronounce-able Stud.IP

Off we go to Stud.IP: the oth­er por­tal for your semester’s sched­ules. Two are always bet­ter than one, after all … Using the login data you have received via mail along­side your con­fir­ma­tion of enroll­ment, you can eas­i­ly get going right away.

First and fore­most, you’ll def­i­nite­ly want to pick the right cours­es for your cor­re­spond­ing mod­ules. Remem­ber: You will need to reg­is­ter for mod­ules in the Löwen­por­tal and then pick the cours­es (sem­i­nars, lec­tures etc.) on Stud.IP. Tim­ing is of the essence here: The ear­li­er the bet­ter, for spots in some class­es are limited!

But don’t wor­ry. If you find your­self star­ing at your screen in cold sweat, some­times even a full sem­i­nar might yield a spot for you. Just show up and maybe you get lucky enough that some­one drops out last minute. Stud.IP offers more to dis­cov­er than that, how­ev­er. Lec­tur­ers can use the por­tal to pro­vide you with files and infor­ma­tion, you can access the bul­letin board and look for fur­ni­ture, books and more offered by oth­er students.

Last but not least: the mail. Your con­fir­ma­tion of enroll­ment also comes with your very own uni­ver­si­ty e‑mail address. The lat­ter is linked to your Stud.IP account and you can have your mail auto­mat­i­cal­ly for­ward­ed to have every­thing in one place. 

You can of course con­tin­ue to use your pri­vate mail­ing address and have all uni­ver­si­ty mail for­ward­ed to it with a few sim­ple clicks. Con­tact details of pro­fes­sors and lec­tur­ers can also be found on their respec­tive Stud.IP profiles.

Books

Worst case: Your first week at uni is in full swing and you already have a pre­sen­ta­tion sched­uled for the com­ing week, not know­ing where to get the nec­es­sary books from. All that can be quite con­fus­ing in Halle. Your first place to go is the main build­ing of the Uni­ver­sitäts-und Lan­des­bib­lio­thek (ULB) library, sit­u­at­ed in August-Bebel-Straße 50. Before you can bor­row any books at all, you’ll need to reg­is­ter your stu­dent ID on the ground floor to your left. Dur­ing your first week, the uni­ver­si­ty offers tours through your branch library that you might want to con­sid­er, for they pro­vide all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the library’s pro­ce­dures. What is more, you will need to renew the reg­is­tra­tion of your stu­dent ID annu­al­ly and can do so at every branch of the library.

Student ID

Have it on you at all times and do not lose it. This lit­tle fel­la is your library card, pub­lic trans­port pass valid for the entire MDV zone and ID for exams. Also, you can charge it using cash or deb­it card at one of the many sta­tions sit­u­at­ed in the din­ing halls and libraries. Thus equipped, you can pay for a tasty meal in one of the din­ing halls or cafe­te­rias with your ID. Even bet­ter: You can also use the card to pay for copies print­ed with one of the uni’s devices at any time, the pos­si­bil­i­ties seem endless!

Please also remem­ber to always make sure to val­i­date your ID, which you can do before the start of every semes­ter using the blue val­i­da­tion box­es of the Löwenge­bäude, House 31 of the Frankesche Stiftun­gen, or the Wein­berg and Hei­de­men­sa din­ing halls. You can val­i­date your ID for the sec­ond semes­ter as soon as you have reg­is­tered for the sum­mer term in Jan­u­ary. A valid stamp on your ID is of course also cru­cial for pub­lic trans­port, so keep an eye on it! 

Exams

Here we are: The end of the semes­ter has arrived. Your first exams are on the hori­zon. You can only pass them, how­ev­er, if you have pre­vi­ous­ly reg­is­tered using the Löwen­por­tal. Should you have failed to do so, your par­tic­i­pa­tion will not be offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered and you will have to take the course again. All of this can be avoid­ed by just mak­ing sure to reg­is­ter as soon as you can. Once all that is done and you have passed your exams, you can access your grades using the Löwen­por­tal. Not all mod­ules will be grad­ed. For some, pass­ing them is enough.

Renewal of matriculation

Short­ly before the end of your semes­ter, you’ll have to re-reg­is­ter with the uni­ver­si­ty. You can do so by sim­ply pay­ing your tuition fee (216,85 Euro for the cur­rent win­ter semes­ter). The dead­line for the com­ing sum­mer term is Jan­u­ary 31st and July 31st for the win­ter term.

Please be aware that fail­ing to meet the dead­lines will cost you an addi­tion­al ten Euro for the delay. But don’t wor­ry, the uni­ver­si­ty will also send reminder mails at the begin­ning and short­ly before the end of the reg­is­tra­tion period.

Help

Should you find your­self at a dead end with any issue con­cern­ing hous­ing or just over­all orga­ni­za­tion, please do not hes­i­tate to seek advice. Both the city of Halle and the uni­ver­si­ty offer plen­ty of infor­ma­tion cen­ters, like the Stu­den­ten­werk on the Wein­berg cam­pus or the Stu­ra at Uni­platz. The Löwenge­bäude also hous­es the student’s ser­vice cen­ter that will glad­ly help you tack­le what­ev­er prob­lems you might have.

We also took the lib­er­ty of assem­bling a list of web­sites for easy help and a first overview.

Let’s go!

Here you are, packed full of infor­ma­tion about being a stu­dent at Mar­tin-Luther Uni­ver­si­ty Halle-Wit­ten­berg. We hope that we were able to help you or at least give you a prop­er first glance. Should you have any com­ments, wor­ries or points of cri­tique, please feel free to con­tact us. Vis­it us on Twit­ter, Face­book and Insta­gram or just send an old-fash­ioned mail to redaktion.de.

Enjoy your stay, dis­cov­er the city, make new friends and see new places. But most of all: We wish you fun and suc­cess­ful studies!

Trans­la­tion: Cedric Kollien

• www.ich-will-wissen.de
• www.studentenwerk-halle.de/startseite.html
• www.rundfunkbeitrag.de
• www.halle.de/de/Verwaltung/
• www.uni-halle.de
• https://loewenportal.uni-halle.de
• https://studip.uni-halle.de
• http://immaamt.verwaltung.uni-halle.de/bewerbung/pruefungsaemter/
• http://bibliothek.uni-halle.de
• OPAC: https://lhhal.gbv.de
• http://blogportal.urz.uni-halle.de/alleblogs
• https://studmail.uni-halle.de
• www.bafoeg-sachsen-anhalt.de

Die deutsche Ver­sion dieses Beitrages find­et ihr hier.