Organisation of history studies Start into the semester
Planning and organising your history studies, taking into account your own interests and your individual starting position, is a major challenge before the first semester. Every subject has its own rules and traditions that you need to familiarise yourself with. On top of that, there are all the things that have to be organised privately, and on top of that, your own accommodation in Heidelberg. The Department of History, the Departmental student committee and Heidelberg University will support you in various ways. To ensure a successful start, personal responsibility and initiative are required. You should therefore take advantage of all the information on offer and familiarise yourself with the structure of your degree programme at an early stage.
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Where can I find information about the start of the semester?
In order to orientate yourself in your (history) studies (or in Heidelberg itself, please refer to the traditional pub crawl organised by the history student council), you should familiarise yourself with the various offers and dates early on.
In any case, keep the first week before the start of the actual lecture period free. You must be present in person in Heidelberg during this week, as many subjects schedule their orientation sessions during this week. Enrolment takes place at the start of the semester, which begins on 1 April (summer semester) or 1 October (winter semester).
- In the week before the start of the course catalogue, the Departmental student committee and the Department of History offer a one-and-a-half-day orientation session/introductory course for first-year students. You should attend this in any case. Among other things, you will draw up your timetable there. The deadlines in the coursework procedures for the source analysis exercises and preparatory seminars are set so that you can decide which courses to attend after attending the relevant sessions in the orientation session. The questions at the beginning of the programme are often the same.
- The academic advisors have put together a ‘Starting your studies’ guide (in German) which, in addition to the orientation session, will help you to choose the right courses for you in the Bachelor of History, e.g. which courses to choose if you are starting the Bachelor of History 75% or 50% and still have to catch up on the Latin.
- ‘Welcome Day’ for first-year students at Heidelberg University is organised by the Student Advisory Office.
Uni-ID and no Uni-ID
The most important information first: Always attend the information events before the start of the lecture period, even if you do not yet have a Uni-ID. Attendance at the preparatory seminars in Medieval and Modern History is currently done by in-person registration to ensure that those who do not yet have a Uni-ID can also take part. Under no circumstances should you wait until after the start of the lecture period, as in many cases places in the courses will be already allocated to others!
After enrolment, fellow students will receive their Uni-ID together with their student ID card by post when they enrol. There are all kinds of reasons why you may not yet have a university account at the beginning of the lecture period, the so-called Uni-ID (see Heidelberg University Computing Centre, URZ for short). The Department of History does not have access to the Uni-ID. Please enquire via the ‘URZ Infoservice’, which also has a branch in the Karolinum.
Registering to the courses...
You can also view the courses offered at Heidelberg University and the Department of History without a Uni-ID and login. Fortunately, the courses you can choose from at the beginning of your degree programme are manageable. The preparatory seminar with tutorial in one of the three epochs Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern or Modern History is the most important course at the start of your degree programme. In consideration of those fellow students who are not yet enrolled and therefore do not have a Uni-ID, the registration procedure (registration for participation) is not organised digitally, but in person following the orientation session (see VVZ History).
However, digital registration to the source analysis exercises, which in most cases are attended in parallel, requires a Uni-ID. Source analysis exercises (Quellenübungen) are labelled accordingly in heiCO (‘Course type in detail’). You can also use the progression diagrams to organise the start of your studies. You can then find the epoch in the ‘Position in the curriculum’ field in heiCO.
The introductory lectures are only available once per epoch. Registration takes place in the first session.
Emails ...
We are aware that email is not one of the most modern forms of communication. Nevertheless, communication at the university, ranging from messages sent automatically by the campus management system heiCO to work assignments from lecturers posted in the Moodle forum, is done via email. You must ensure that you check your university emails several times a day so that the information reaches you promptly. The argument ‘I haven't read it’ does not count as an excuse. Email apps can easily handle multiple email accounts. You can therefore set up the ‘business’ email account via the Uni-ID in parallel to the private one.