Before the Mobility (BTM)

... as an exchange student from a partner university of TH Köln?

If you are studying at a partner university of TH Köln, your home university must nominate you for an exchange place at TH Köln. There are fixed nomination periods during which your coordinator can make the nomination in our MobilityOnline platform. 

The deadlines for the nomination and application process are as follows:

Mobility in the winter semester or for a full academic year:

• Nomination by April 15th
• Students complete application May 1st
• (if Erasmus student or Learning Agreement requested voluntarily): Students submit their Learning Agreement by June 1st

Mobility in the summer semester:

• Nomination by October 15th
• Students complete application by November 1st
• (if Erasmus student or Learning Agreement requested voluntarily): Students submit Learning Agreement by December 1st

... as a "freemover"?

Your home university does not co-operate with us? Even then, under certain conditions, you have the opportunity to spend a period abroad at TH Köln.

Freemovers are exchange students who wish to study at TH Köln without a bilateral university agreement between TH Köln and their home university. As a rule, freemovers can be enrolled at TH Köln for one or two semesters. During such a stay, freemovers cannot obtain a Bachelor's or Master's degree at TH Köln.

If you are interested in such a stay, please inform yourself in advance about our study programmes. Please note that the language of instruction for the majority of our degree programmes is German. A few degree programmes are offered bilingually in German and English or entirely in English.

In almost all cases, you must provide proof of language proficiency at level B1 according to CEFR in the language of instruction. On the following page you will find information about our degree programmes and the language skills required in each case: [LINK TO NEW WEBSITE "Information for studying at TH Köln" is coming soon]. Please be sure to check this page before submitting a freemover application!

Mobility in the winter semester or for a whole academic year:

• Application in sciebo* by April 15th
• Registration and completion of data in MobilityOnline by May 1st
• (if Learning Agreement requested voluntarily): Students submit their Learning Agreement by June 1st

Mobility in the summer semester:

• Application in sciebo* by October 15th
• Registration and completion of data in MobilityOnline by November 1st
• (if Learning Agreement requested voluntarily): Students submit Learning Agreement by December 1st

*For the application in sciebo, please upload the following application documents in ONE PDF-file to the sciebo portal.

• Current CV
• Current transcript of records
• Letter of motivation (Why do you want to study here? What are your goals?)
• A letter of application in which you state the desired period of stay and desired subject area
• A list of the courses you would like to attend at TH Köln
• Proof of your German or English language skills, which should be at least level B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)
• Exception: In the case of a freemover application for the ifs - International Film School Cologne, no specific courses or proof of language skills are required at the time of application. Both will be determined later after consultation with the subject coordinator. Instead, please state the desired degree programme (and specialisation, if applicable) and the minimum number of ECTS credits required. You should also submit a portfolio of your previous work.

After the application deadline, the Department of International Affairs will forward your application documents to the department you have selected. The decision on admission is made solely by the faculty. You will be informed of an acceptance or rejection by the Department of International Affairs by e-mail.

Once the nomination/freemover application has been accepted, you will receive an email with access data to register in Mobility Online. Please look out for an email from incomings-exchange@th-koeln.de and check your spam folder if necessary. After registering, complete your application by adding further information and uploading some documents.

To make it easier for you to keep track of the process, the necessary steps are shown in the so-called ‘workflow’ and are ticked off one after the other as soon as you have completed them.

Once your application is complete, the incoming team at TH Köln will carry out the formal assessment. From this point at the latest, you will be assigned a responsible Departmental Coordinator at TH Köln. He or she will supervise all academic aspects of your mobility.

After the formal assessment, a Learning Agreement - Before the Mobility (LA-BTM) can be drawn up.

For worldwide mobilities and freemovers, the Learning Agreement is optional, so you must first answer the question in the workflow as to whether you want to create an LA or not. Please note: if you do not answer this question, you will not progress any further in the workflow and will not be able to reach the point of admission! 

The Learning Agreement is mandatory for Erasmus mobilities.

There are two ways to create a Learning Agreement: If your university uses Erasmus Without Paper (EWP), you can create a Digital Learning Agreement (DLA) - sometimes also called Online Learning Agreement (OLA) - in your own platform and transfer it digitally to TH Köln. If not, upload a Learning Agreement as a pdf file in Mobility Online. You will find detailed information on this in your workflow in Mobility Online. Your Departmental Coordinator at TH Köln can help you with questions about course selection.

Before choosing a course, you should ask your Departmental Coordinator at TH Köln for an overview of the available courses. This may be a course list specifically for international students or the module handbook for your chosen degree programme at TH Köln.

As the DLA is created in the platform of your home university, you should ask your coordinators at home how to enter the courses correctly. The team at TH Köln cannot help you in this situation.

The following deadlines apply for submitting the DLA-BTM:

 Mobility in the winter semester or for a whole year: June 1st

Mobility in the summer semester: December 1st

Before choosing a course, you should ask your Departmental Coordinator at TH Köln for an overview of the available courses. This may be a course list specifically for international students or the module handbook for your chosen degree programme at TH Köln.

The following deadlines apply for submitting the LA-BTM:

 Mobility in the winter semester or for a whole year: June 1st

 Mobility in the summer semester: December 1st

Please ask your coordinator at your home university which template you should use for the Learning Agreement. Alternatively, you can use the EU Commission's template. This is an Erasmus-compliant template from the EU Commission. We recommend that partners outside the EU skip the Erasmus-specific information and only use the parts of the form that are relevant to their context.

Once you have completed your LA and it has been signed by you and your coordinator at your home university, please save it and upload it to your MobilityOnline workflow.

Please note the following requirements for the upload:

- PDF format
- max. 5MB

Students visiting TH Köln for an Erasmus+ KA171 exchange from a university outside the European Union (mobility with partner countries) will receive a template for the LA from our KA171 coordinator Christian Riechel. Please follow his instructions.

Link to KA171 site.

You will soon find all the information here on how to apply and what you need to organise in order to be able to write your thesis during your stay abroad.

A study semester in Germany is the ideal opportunity to learn German. Regardless of whether you are an advanced student or just starting out, a German course can help you to improve your command of the language and thus indirectly help you to better understand the country and its people. Even if you are studying in English at TH Köln, you should take the opportunity to acquire a basic knowledge of German. Many aspects of daily life (e.g. shopping, dealing with authorities, looking for a job, etc.) can be tedious without knowledge of German and become much easier with some basic knowledge!

In addition to study-related German courses accompanying your studies at various levels, the Language Learning Centre at TH Köln also offers other foreign languages such as English, French, Italian and Spanish. The best thing about it - the language courses at the Language Learning Centre are free of charge for all TH Köln students! If you attend regularly, you can also receive ECTS points for these courses.

Please note that you must register online for all language courses at the Language Learning Centre before the start of the semester. If you already have previous knowledge of a language, you must take a placement test. Alternatively, you can also send a current language certificate to the Language Learning Centre: sprachlernzentrum@th-koeln.de. How you can apply to take part in a language course is explained here. 

Please note: You must already have the required knowledge of the working language of your chosen degree programme at the beginning of your stay! It is not possible to start the exchange with a lower language level and only fulfil the requirements by attending a language course at TH Köln.

Exchange students need a level of at least B1 (CEFR) in the language of instruction. In some degree programmes, a higher level is required. You can see whether the language of instruction is English or German on the following website: [[LINK TO NEW WEBSITE "Information for studying at TH Köln" (incl Fak-Infosheets) ]]
Please note that level B1 must be reached by the application deadline (May 1st / November 1st). This will ensure that you have the chance of successful and academically meaningful mobility. In addition to certificates such as telc, TestDaF, Goethe etc., we also accept a certificate of language level from the language centre of your university and online tests from reputable providers. However, mere participation in a language course at level B1 is not sufficient proof of language proficiency.

Exceptions are only possible after prior consultation with the faculty.

Further information on the faculties of TH Köln and the working languages of the respective degree programmes can be found at: [[coming soon]]. Some faculties also provide a preselection of English-language courses for international students here.

You will discuss your choice of subject/course with the Departmental Coordinator. This page provides you with an overview of important information and resources for your course selection.

LINK TO NEW WEBSITE "Information for studying at TH Köln" (incl. faculty info sheets) is coming soon.

IMPORTANT: In order to earn credits, all students must actively participate in the coursework and examinations (or other relevant assessments) of their courses. It is not possible to pass courses or earn credits without taking the coursework and examinations. Courses in which a student has not participated will not be listed on the transcript of records (not even as "failed" courses!) 

Please be prepared to take coursework and examinations, even if your home university would not necessarily require them. Mere attendance is not a mark of success for our courses, therefore TH Köln does not usually issue certificates of attendance for courses/examinations.
Please ask your lecturers at the beginning of your stay which achievements are required for which course.

On the following page you will find an overview of the locations of TH Köln as well as the faculties/institutes and your contact persons there. The Departmental Coordinators are available to answer your technical and academic questions.