Outline. Overall, this article is a loose collection of advice regarding the B.Sc. in Computer Science. You can skip to whatever part is most interesting to you. The outline is shown on the right.

Links

Some links and references to start with:

• [1] Official Examination Regulations, B.Sc. in Computer Science.
• [2] Campus Office.
• [3] Central Examination Office; also see Contact Persons.
• [4] L2P Online Learning Platform.
• [5] Computer Science Mailing List.
• [6] Jobspam Mailing List.
• [7] Student Advisory ("Fachstudienberatung").
• [8] Student Association for Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics ("Fachschaft MPI").
• [9] Video Club ("Video AG").

Curriculum

The curriculum is summarized in Table 1.

General Advice

The following is a loose collection of general tips and tricks. First of all, some tips to get started.

• Know who to contact in case of problems and questions; an overview of contact persons can be found on the page of the Student Advisory ("Fachstudienberatung") [7].
• Know where to find old lecture videos recorded by the Video Club ("Video AG") [9]; most of the mandatory courses from the curriculum are available from earlier semesters.
• Visit the consultation hours ("Sprechstunden") of the student association for computer science, mathematics and physics ("Fachschaft MPI") [8] at least ones per semester to print old exams for a few cents per page.
• Register for all mailing lists you find relevant (whether it is computer science, sports, other disciplines, "jobspam" or whatever); here are some important ones: Computer Science Mailing List [5] (for everything related to studying computer science, e.g. announcements, deadlines ...), Jobspam Mailing List [6], the mailing list corresponding to your minor. The list of all mailing lists can be found here.
• During the semester, the mandatory exercises (which are usually required to gain access to the exam) induce a rather high work load; nevertheless, it pays off to do well in the first half of the semester - if you gathered enough points after roughly three quarters of the semester, you can skip some exercises at the end, leaving some more time to prepare for the exams.
• Get to know the Textbook Collection ("Lehrbuchsammlung") which usually holds textbooks for all mandatory and most elective courses; however, for popular lectures, the corresponding textbooks may be out of stock early in the semester.
• Get to know the Computer Science Library.
• Keep your corrected exercises (expecially if you TeXed them); they will help you studying for the exams.

Minors

The official examination regulations [1] (in German) lists the following minors:

• Mathematics
• Economics
• Electrical Engineering

However, several additional minors are also possible:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Philosophy
• Biology
• Physics

For the above minors, the necessary courses are more or less fixed (except for possible electives as part of the minor) and enough students have enrolled in these minors over the time, i.e. the student advisory ("Fachstudienberatung") [7] has experience with handling these minors. Other minors are also possible, however, necessary courses have to be determined. This usually requires a lot of organizational work (i.e. working with the student advisory and the corresponding professors to get everything working).

Choosing a minor may be difficult and it is hard (and often requires additional work) to switch minors. Your minor is determined by the first exam you register for (e.g. as soon as you register for the exam of Numerical Analysis, your minor will be Mathematics). So you should try to get some information on your prospective minor - talk to students and visit the introduction to all minors organized each semester, see here.

Electives

There are plenty of possible elective courses offered (full list can be found in the official examination regulations [1]).

Advice. Regularly visit the Campus Office [2] for both B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Science. Usually all courses for M.Sc. in Computer Science can also be completed as part of the B.Sc. in Computer Science. However, it will be required to register for the exams in person at the Central Examination Office [3].

Most of the elective courses are offered for both B.Sc. in Computer Science and M.Sc. in Computer Science and are, therefore, offered on a regular basis, for example every winter semester (WS) or summer semester (SS). It is also possible to take electives prior to the fifth semester.

Advice. Some electives can already be taken in the third or fourth semester and often complement the corresponding curriculum well. For example, beneath Software Engineering, it is possible to attend courses such as Model-Based Software Engineering or Generative Software Engineering. Similar combinations are possible for Databases and Information Systems or Data Communication and Security. If in doubt, attend the first lecture and explicitly ask the professor whether attendance in a specific semester is possible.

Choosing the right electives is hard, especially due to the vast number of possible electives.

Advice. If you could not decide which electives to take, register for all of them, get access to the corresponding L2P [4] rooms/groups and decide after the first few weeks into the semester; if you missed the first few exercises of an elective, do not hesitate to contact the teaching assistant and explain your situation.

Non-Technical Electives

Non-Technical Electives are meant to force future Computer Scientists to acquire important soft skills or attend lectures in "non-technical" disciplines.

Advice. The lectures officially supported (i.e. listed in Campus Office [1]) are usually boring (to say the best; which is my personal opinion). However, usually it is possible to attend basically all lectures in non-technical disciplines (popular disciplines are Philoshopy, Economics or Medicine). The drawback is that the chosen courses need to be acknowledged by the student advisory ("Fachstudienberatung") [7] which may require some weeks. The most popular choice for non-technical electives are language courses (usually English, French, Spanish etc.; however, exotic languages like Chinese or Japanese are also possible). These language courses will either give 2 or 4 credits and registration takes place the week prior to semester start.

Shifting Courses

As already mentioned, most electives are flexible. The same usually holds for seminars and labs, both of which are distributed centrally: application through a web form usually opens two to three month prior to the semester and one can register to multiple seminars/labs and proseminars; they are usually sorted by topic.

Advice. It might be beneficial to complete the Proseminar in the second semester depending on the chosen minor. This may reduce work load in the third semester.

(Pro-)Seminars and Labs

As already mentioned, (Pro-)Seminars and Labs are distributed centrally - the registration links are usually announced via the Mailing List [5]. At the point of registration, most chairs do not provide any useful information on the seminar content. Therefore, it pays off to ask other students or the teaching assistants (as they will probably advice your seminar or lab). Seminars and labs usually require prerequisites, for example attending certain courses. However, this should not be taken too serious, especially as bachelor student.

Adive. Check the offered (Pro-)Seminars and Labs as early as possible and try to get more detailed information on the topics through other students or the teaching assistants.

Some advice on writing seminar papers:

Advice. Be aware that RWTH Aachen University Single Sing-On offers access to plenty top journals and conferences (e.g. through IEEE Xplore or Springer Link); this will simplify looking for additional literature on specific topics.

Advice. Learn LaTeX - you will need it; and after a steep learning curve it is much easier to submit exercises/seminars/theses written in LaTex than using Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer (most Seminars will require you to use LaTex anyway).

Exchange Semesters

Personally, I would encourage any type of exchange semester, and RWTH Aachen University offers many connections to other universities around the globe.

Advice. Even if you are not sure whether you want to do an exchange semester, visit the presentation of Dr. Dirk Thissen in your second or third semester to get some basic information about exchange semesters. The presentation is usually held at the beginning of each semester and announced through the Mailing List [5].

If your plans are getting more concrete, contact Dr. Dirk Thissen and the corresponding contact persons at the International Office to get started with the formalities (application, learning agreement etc.). You can also visit the information sessions offered by the International Office, see here.

Course-Specific Resources