Studybegin

Welcome to the University of Rostock and the Institute of Computer Science. Important information and procedures for first semester students (Freshmen) are listed below.

Freshmen-Brochure (Download INF/WIN)

The Freshmen-Brochure is a small booklet for first-year students (Computer Science/Business Informatics) with the most important information for a successful start to your studies. It is updated annually, revised and expanded if necessary. The printed version of the brochure is distributed by the student council during the introductory week and later in front of and in the student council room (R138/139) in the Konrad-Zuse-Haus. The Freshmen brochure is also available for the study programs Electrical Engineering and Information Technology / Computer Engineering. Of course, you can also download the brochure here as a PDF and print it out yourself or read it on your screen.

Mentoring

The Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (IEF) has a student mentoring program for freshmen. This means that during your first semester, two students from higher semesters will be available to assist you. The mentors will organize regular meetings with your respective mentoring group and provide you with many important tips and pass on their experience to you. You will be assigned to the respective groups during the introductory week. If you have not been assigned to a group, please contact your student council.

There are mentoring groups for:

• Bachelor Computer Science
• Bachelor Business Informatics
• Bachelor Information Technology / Computer Engineering
• Bachelor Electrical Engineering
• State Examination Teacher Training
• Bachelor Vocational Education

Students from higher semesters who continue their studies at the University of Rostock (also Master) are welcome to join a mentoring group.

Any questions?

Then write an e-mail to your Fachschaftsrat Informatik!

Timetable and course catalog

You can compile and save your schedule now and in the following semesters with the help of the course catalog (to be found at: lsf.uni-rostock.de). Under Courses you will find your study program and the respective semesters. The individual courses are listed here and can be “marked” for your personal timetable, i.e. saved. In the timetable view you have to choose the option “semester view” to not only see single weeks. Once you have entered all the required lectures, your respective exercise groups and any other courses in the timetable, you can save the overview as a PDF.

Stud.IP

Stud.IP is a platform for supporting and organizing courses. It is also used in particular for communication between professors/lecturers and the participants in their courses, i.e. you. In Stud.IP, you register for your courses after logging in with your account. To do this, search for the name or the module number of the respective course. Please note that lectures and the corresponding tutorial have two separate Stud.IP groups! Usually all scripts, homework, exercise sheets, point lists and other materials are uploaded in these groups. In addition, important announcements and notices from the lecturers will appear here. You should visit Stud.IP at least once a day!

PS: Please also sign up for your respective mentoring group as soon as they are available.

Processes

After enrollment, newly enrolled (future) students will receive a large envelope from the university. This envelope contains, among other things, a confirmation of enrollment, information material, an account from the IT and Media Center (with activation code), a semester ticket, student ID and study certificates.

The study certificates are needed at various places (BAFöG, insurance, clubs, etc.) and you can reprint them online at https://pruefung.uni-rostock.de. With the semester ticket you are entitled to use Rostock’s public transportation free of charge. The student ID is especially important, you need it at the beginning of your studies, for example to get a university library card, canteen card, student card (e.g. for copying at the university printers) or key card and of course to use the student discount that is now available to you.

As a rule, your study period starts about 3 weeks before that of the other students.

Your studies will start (approx. mid/end of September) with a 2-week mathematics pre-course and an introduction to programming. In the last week before the actual lecture period, there is an introductory week for first-year students at the University of Rostock. During this week, the campus day, a general welcome and information day, takes place on the campus in Ulmenstraße. The student representatives will be on site and look forward to advising you and answering any questions you may have. In addition, there will be very interesting events for freshmen during the introductory week, e.g. from the Institute of Computer Science and from us as the Student Council for Computer Science. If you have not received any information about the schedule for the introduction week, we will try to publish it on this website as soon as possible.

After the introduction week, the regular lecture period begins for all students. Except for math exercises, the first exercises of a module will not start until after the first lecture.

Websites

On the internet you can find almost all relevant information and online platforms of the University of Rostock. These include the online presences of all the university’s institutions as well as services such as e-mail, the course catalog, Stud.IP and the examination administration. With your ITMZ account and your password you can log in to all these important web services and also log in to the WLAN. The most important websites of the university are listed below and their functions are briefly described.

E-Mail**:

https://email.uni-rostock.de

It is best to check your e-mail box daily from the first day of your studies. Important information from the university, the professors and us, the student council, are usually sent by e-mail.

Stud.IP*:

https://studip.uni-rostock.de

Stud.IP is a kind of social network for everyday study. Lecture notes, exercises and important information from professors are published here, important information from professors. The platform is also very well suited for platform is also very well suited for communication.

Course Catalogue*:

https://lsf.uni-rostock.de

In the course catalog you can register for courses (lectures, exercises, practical courses) and compile your timetable.

Student Services (BAFöG Office, Mensaplan)

https://www.stw-rw.de/en.html

The Studierendenwerk is a contact point for various matters such as student financing, BAföG application, dining hall menu, bulletin board for furniture and part-time job search.

University Library*:

https://ub.uni-rostock.de

Here you can search for books and ebooks online, view borrowed books and, if necessary, renew the loan. Ebooks can only be downloaded from the university network!

Exam registration*:

https://pruefung.uni-rostock.de

Here you can print study certificates, find examination dates, register for examinations and view your performance overview.

Language Center:

https://sprachenzentrum.uni-rostock.de

At the Language Center you can take a free placement test and take English as an elective. elective subject. Of course, many other languages are also offered.

Printer*:

https://uniprint.uni-rostock.de

The Uniprint system allows you to upload print jobs (e.g. lecture notes) and have them printed on the next visit to a university printer. next visit at a university printer (library, institute for computer science etc.) with your copy card fast and cheap.

University Sports:

https://hochschulsport.uni-rostock.de

As a balance to the daily study routine, the wide range of university sports is a great and inexpensive way to possibility to be physically active.

Social Networks:

The student council of computer science is reachable on various social media platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

*Registration with ITMZ-account (e.g. mm123) and password.

**Email addressing Ex: max.mustermann@uni-rostock.de

Wifi at the university:

Wifi connections are available in almost all university facilities (lecture halls, refectory, university library, etc.). “eduroam” - the eduroam network is a Wifi connection that you can use at many European universities, regardless of your home university.

You have to log in with your ITMZ account (e.g. mm123@uni-rostock.de).

Security: WPA2-Enterprise / Encryption type: AES / Authentication: PEAP

Student Council

The student council for computer science (german: Fachschaftsrat Informatik), an elected student council, will accompany you from the beginning of your studies. Already during the introductory week we plan different events and give you a lot of information and hints for a good start into your studies. You can find more information about us and our events on this website.

Thesis

To complete your Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, you have to write a thesis. We recommend the following procedure:

• Approx. 6 weeks before your intended start date, ask various professors for available topics or contact the appropriate chair with your desired topic.

• Meet with your chosen supervisors about 3 to 4 weeks before the start date and discuss what both sides have in mind for the work. Afterwards, your supervisors should write a task description and prepare the registration of the thesis at the study office. You will then need to sign this.

• Tips for getting started from a fellow student can be found at https://github.com/hutchison/bachelorarbeit-faq (German).

• You can find the detailed requirements for the assignment in the programme-specific examination and study regulations and in the framework examination regulations, which you can download at https://pruefung.uni-rostock.de/qisserver/rds?state=verpublish&publishContainer=abstgvDetail&posstgid=799.

• Create a plan that shows the tasks for each of the 20 weeks (literature research, concept, implementation, etc.).

• Save and organise your sources during the research, not afterwards.

• Pay attention to conscientious scientific work (https://www.time.rwth-aachen.de/cms/TIME/Die-Research-Area/Marketing-MAR-/MAR-Meldungen/~eslz/TIME-Richtlinien-fuer-wissenschaftliches/lidx/1/) and citation (https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/1236069/1236069.pdf).

• Meet regularly with your supervisors (ideally every 1-2 weeks). They will monitor your progress (milestones) and make sure you don’t go astray. ;)

• Allow enough time for proofreading and printing.

Why do I need a VPN connection to the ITMZ?

What is behind VPN and how this technology works, you can read elsewhere. Here, we will only briefly explain what the whole thing can do for you.

If you have started a VPN connection to the ITMZ of the University of Rostock, your PC gets an IP address of the university. It starts with 139.30.xxx.xxx. This IP is partly necessary to access servers within the ITMZ firewall, but also to benefit from the services of the homepage of www.springerlink.de. You can also visit the homepage, but you can only download most of the books if you are a student of the University of Rostock.

(You can save the VPN tunnel if you are sitting in the university library or in the WLAN of the university, because then you automatically have a university IP and will be accepted by the homepage).

How do I establish a VPN connection to the ITMZ?

At the moment it seems that the connection under Windows can only be established with a Cisco tool “AnyConnect”. You can find the information for this on the ITMZ homepage.

Establishing a VPN connection under Linux

This tutorial is based on Debian 10, but should be transferable to all major distributions. The tutorial is limited to the minimal use case.

1. install OpenConnect sudo apt install openconnect, depending on distribution and package manager this command may differ.

2. open the VPN tunnel, open a terminal and execute the command sudo openconnect --protocol=anyconnect --authgroup=Internet-Access --user=xyz123 vpn.uni-rostock.de, in which you replace xyz123 with your own user ID. Then enter your password. Now you should be connected to the VPN.

3. close the tunnel, leave the terminal window open as long as you want to surf over the VPN. Once you are done, press CTRL+C in the terminal window to close the connection.

How do I access data stored on PCs at the university?

Is documented here

How can software from the ITMZ be used at home?

It is possible to use some of the ITMZ software from home. For example, these are programs that can be helpful in math (Mathematica and MATLAB), but also the MS Office, Adobe Acrobat Professional and much more. This is done with the help of Windows Remote Desktop Connection.

How do I establish a remote desktop connection?

You can find the required information here and here