1. Get an Overview

In the LSF, a.k.a. campus-online, you will find all important documents for planning your studies. At campusonline.uni-ulm.de > Study > Degree Course Scheme you can find an overview of all degree course schemes of the different degree courses at the university. You can find the one that's relevant for you by searching for the name of the course program, and based on the year you started your studies.

2. The Degree Course Scheme

In the study plan, you can see which lectures the university suggests you attend in your respective semester. In principle, you can choose which course you attend at which point in time. However, as long as you stick to the order and semester distribution of the study plan, you can avoid overlapping lectures and be sure that you do not attend a lecture for which you do not yet meet the course requirements.

3. ECTS, WSH & Co.KG

Throughout your studies, you will come across many abbreviations that you may not yet know. Below is a brief overview.  

•  ECTS: Each course that you attend in your degree programme will be awarded so-called credit points according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This means that you will accumulate a lot of credits across the semesters. In order to obtain the Master of Science degree, you must have achieved a total of 120 credits (including the Master's thesis). However, the extent to which the grade of a course impacts your final grade depends on how many ECTS this course has in comparison to others. The amount of ECTS a course grants does not depend on your grade. As soon as you have passed the course, you get the full ECTS. 
• 2L+2E. Now we're in the WSH (weekly semester hours) column of the table. The 'L' stands for lecture hours and the 'E' for an exercise. A unit is always calculated as 45 minutes. Since lectures usually last 90 minutes, 2L means that you have one lecture per week. In addition, there is another one and a half hours of exercises. You can find out what this will look like exactly in the module handbook or at the beginning of the respective course. [Disclaimer: During online semesters, of course, everything runs a little differently. Nevertheless, you can get an idea of how much work a course will take per week by looking at the time given. Especially in the first semester it is important that you do not overestimate yourself.]  
• For a complete list, see the bottom left corner of the degree course scheme.

4. Where can I find the study and examination regulations?

How a course is examined and the scope of its content is determined by the FSPO ("Fachspezifische Prüfungsordnung" = subject-specific study and examination regulations). This complements the university's general study and examination regulations ("Rahmenordnung"). These regulations specify, for example, how often you can attempt to take an exam to pass, of if it is possible to repeat an exam in order to improve your grade (it is not). You can also find your examination regulations in the LSF under Study > Examination Regulation. From there, you will be redirected to the university's website where you can search for your study and examination regulations. If you started studying Cognitive Systems in the winter semester 22/23, you are in the FSPO 2017.

6. Exams are coming up, what now

All graded courses that you will attend are only considered to have been passed if you have passed the respective examination. You can only take this exam if you have registered for it in the LSF beforehand. The professors can then plan better and also enter your grade later on. An exam is considered passed if you get a 4.0 (usually about half of the points to be achieved) or better. It is important to note that there is a deadline for registering for exams: You can register and deregister up to four days before the exam at the latest. After that, it's definite. If you forget to register for an exam, you can still take it, depending on the lecturer (not the case during Corona), but the result will not be graded or the exam will not even be corrected. In some courses, there will be a prerequisite. The exact composition of this depends on the course. In contrast to a grade bonus, which you can also achieve under certain circumstances, you need the prerequisite in order to register for the exam and thus participate. You also have to register for the prerequisite in the LSF. You can usually find it directly under or above the respective exam registration in the list on campus-online. To avoid running out of time, always register early!

7. I still have questions, whom can I ask?

If it's about a specific subject, the lecturer or exercise instructor is the first point of contact. Most Moodle courses have a forum for questions. Simply post your question there. Often it's not just you who has this question, so the answer will also help your fellow students. If you have general questions, you can also contact the Fachschaft at fin@lists.uni-ulm.de. This mailing list is read by many people every day and there is always someone who can either answer your question directly or knows the right person to ask instead.