website/ersties/semester-planning.md

Semester Planning

Whenever the course registration opens, make sure that you know what you want to do next semester, and ideally what you want to do the next few semesters.

For planning, StudyPlanner may come in very handy, as it helps you keep track of what you still need to do and what you already have done.

For picking courses, you may want to read reviews of courses, which you can do on CourseReview.

Requirements for Bachelor

The CS Bachelor can be a bit confusing in terms of its requirements. I explained it as I would have hoped it had been to me when I started in HS24:

• Semester 1 and 2: You need to pass both, each on average. You either get all 28 credits, or none at all for each of the semesters. You have two attempts for each semester. The average is the raw average (i.e. 3.99 fails) and taken after rounding for each of the courses.
• Semester 3 and onwards: You need to pass each exam and they award you the credits individually. This means that you can take just three of the typical four courses in semester 3.
• Basic Courses: The basic courses are the eight mandatory courses in semester three and four. You need to pass seven out of them within two attempts each. If you failed one, you can compensate it with a core course, but only if you have attended and failed said course. Failing two or more basic courses twice and you are out of the programme and blocked from this programme.
• Core subjects: These courses are typically taken in Semester 5 and 6, and you need to pass at least four of them. If you failed a basic course twice (or once and decided not to retake it), you have to pass at least five of them.
• Ergänzung: This is a course from a different department, and it needs to be worth at least 5 credits. You can pick any from the approved ones on VVZ. Failing one twice isn't a big deal, just pick another one.
• GESS: GESS courses are things like history, philosophy and more and you need 6 credits in this category (any excess won't contribute to your total). Three of these credits can be obtained through language courses.
• Bachelor's Thesis: Should be self-explanatory, is worth ten credits.
• Seminar: You need to participate in at least one seminar, worth two credits.
• Electives: These are extra subjects you can take (and you will most likely have to take a couple of them) to fill in the remaining credits.

Note that for courses that have a bonus, that bonus is generally added before rounding.