Counselling and Supporting Refugees
counselling for refugees interested in studying at Hochschule Merseburg and enrolled students with refugee background about the following issues:
- Study areas and degree programmes at Hochschule Merseburg
- Information about programmes especially for refugees, e.g. preparatory courses and the Studienkolleg
- General and special study requirements
- Organization of studies
- Dealing with study-related personal difficultie
- Change of degree programme or university
- Postgraduate programmes and further study options after graduation
The counselling service is free of charge and confidential.
Support about the following issues:
- Support during the application process for studying at Hochschule Merseburg
- Help with documents and forms (e.g. registration and re-registration, vacation semesters)
Student Counselling
Elisa Karau-Unkroth
Registrar's office
Guest Auditors
Refugees can easily enroll as guest auditors at Hochschule Merseburg and make use of the library.
Buddy Service
Our Buddy Service is designed to make it easier for our international exchange students to quickly get accommodated and feel at home in Merseburg. The “buddies” are German and international students from the university who are familiar with Merseburg and the university. They help incoming international students with the formalities of registering with the city and daily life issues. They also organize trips and other social events.
Further tips and information
In case your German skills are not yet good enough to study in German, you can check out the online platform Kiron Open Higher Education. It offers English-language online courses in four fields of study: Business and Economics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Political Science and Social Science.
The idea behind Kiron:
The idea is to give refugees access to higher education, which is free of charge and non-bureaucratic. This is done by providing online courses, so-called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) created by globally recognized universities and elite universities like Harvard or Stanford. The online university degree programme is taught in English at the beginning. In addition to Fachkurse (subject-related courses), Kiron also offers language courses, e.g. German courses, a Buddy programme and help with finding a job on graduating. After two years of online courses – which are recognized by universities in Germany cooperating in the programme – students are expected to spend their third year at one of the hitherto 23 German partner universities and graduate from the respective university.