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My education in germany – Masters in automotive software engineering part 2


In the first part of this topic I had briefly explained about how to select the subjects and how to use the time table and decide which subjects to take and attend. Also, I explained how each subject is given as a Lecture and a Exercise session which covers 1.5 hours each. If you want to get this info then please check out the part 1 of this article at


In this part I will explain about the next part of a student’s life – The examination period in Chemnitz.




The examination period roughly covers around a month depending around the group you are in, the number of subjects you are taking (the less you take the less your examination period will be obviously) and also on the subjects you are taking. For example this semester in the winter term 2013 the examination for me began on 4th of February 2014 and on this day I had compiler construction. On 6th I had multicore programming and so forth. So, the examination for me started on 4th while for students who did not take this subject it began much later .


Also, the important thing is there are different departments in a study program. For example the informatik(computer science) has different professorships  such as operating systems, practical computer science , computer engineering. And the examination begins with each the subjects in each department in a given order. For example the practical computer science department keeps its examination first. 

Then comes the Operating systems department. And so on. So there is a order in which the examinations are scheduled and also the results are also given in the same schedule. Also, you may  get results even before your other examinations  are  over. For example before our third examination Design of software for embedded systems was finished we got the results for compilers and multicore programming. That’s scary !!!

And since the examinations are roughly for a month the examination if it began on February gets over by March first week. The intervals between the exams depends on the subjects but sometimes you get one day in between and sometimes it can last more than two weeks !!
What happens during the examination period. Well you may be attending some classes (mostly doubt session of the remaining examinations or lectures as well ) . It’s also possible that your examination begins tomorrow and you may have lecture or doubt session a day before that. But mostly, during the examination periods students are sitting in the library studying or staying in a room and studying . And I would advise here that people should do a get together kind of study (or a group study) since that really helps if you have missed a lots of classes and or having doubts in any topics. There are lots of good students here (experienced and scholars)  so don’t feel shy in asking any stuff to them. Mostly students cook once in a day mostly at night or in the afternoon time and eat outside (at least I did ;)).

What is the stress level during examinations? Well actually I felt there is nothing to feel stressed about here. You just have to study slides instead of the heavy book s or any other material which we used to study in india and  also you should know how to solve questions given in the exercise. If you are able to cover these two then you are good to go for the examinations. 99% questions are from the slides and exercises and maybe 1% of the question may be a bit brain whacking but that doesn’t matter unless you are really trying for 1,0 which  is the maximum marks which can be score in a given test.

How the grading is done? Well there are two grading patters and basically its absolute grading (percentage) or relative grading (percentile). It is fairly simple. If you get 40 out of 50 marks then you have 80 percent which might correspond to 2,0 depending on the professors criteria (for ex he might have set 48+ as 1,0 : 46+ as 1,3 : 42+ as 1,7 : 40+ as 2,0 etc). But the other type of grading is relative grading in which your marks are compared with the top marks which a student has achieved. For example if the paper was difficult and if the maximum marks were 45 then that is considered as 1,0 and then if you have 40 then you will be given 1,7. So better hope for relative grading!

When do you fail? Usually when you get 4,0 or more marks out of 5. Sometimes even 3,7 is not enough to satisfy the professor and the students are asked to rewrite the examinations. Yes , that’s possible !!

One thing to be  happy about here is , if you get less in some subjects then there is nothing to worry about since for your master thesis  and internship/seminar you are awarded the 1,0 grading so even if you  have maintained 3,0 as an average then your overall average becomes 2,0 which is a very good score. So, nothing to worry about here.
How to register for the examinations? Well during two months before the examination starts you have to register for the examinations. You can do that by going to the SBservice, clicking prufungsamt, and then register for examinations, your course of study (for ex automotive software engineering) and then you can just selec the subjects under each of the course modules. Before doing all this you need to enter a tan number and this list you get after getting your TUC card and immatrikulation form.

If you have registered for a examination and if you are feeling that you might not perform well then you can deregister 7 days before the examination day. After that you have to take that examination no matter what (unless you  are medically ill and you have to give one medical certificate) and you can’t escape from that subject  ever again!

Well, I hope I have covered most of the education aspects in here in Chemnitz. If you have any other question , feel free and post it here. Kudos


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