Rhein-Main: Study at three universities at the same time

RMU degree

Students from the Goethe University Frankfurt, the Technical University Darmstadt and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz can enroll in the new RMU course without additional fees from the winter semester 2020/2021. The abbreviation stands for Rhine-Main Universities.

About their own degree In addition, students can also attend courses at the other two universities and take exams there. They also benefit from libraries, computer centers and canteens.

Your strategic alliance the three universities started five years ago. They meet once a year for a conference. Further information on the new RMU degree program can be found at www.rhein-main-universitaeten.de/studium. sky

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The past summer semester went better than feared, and the participants of the conference largely agree on this. Around 300 tuned in in two hours, listened to a panel discussion and designed workshops on the future of digital teaching. Only twelve of them rate the semester as bad or worse than expected.

However, expectations weren’t exactly high. “In March and April we were still afraid that it could be a zero semester,” says Tanja Brühl, President of the TU Darmstadt. She is accordingly happy that, contrary to fear, all exams and more than 95 percent of the events were run. Even if not with the usual quality.

The TU asked its students about the biggest obstacles. 60 percent complain that they cannot come to office hours, 80 percent miss their study groups, 90 percent lack personal contact. Brühl is also missing. “It’s awful to walk across the empty campus.”

Kyra Beninga, chairwoman of the Frankfurt student committee, also speaks of a semester with great stress. Many would have complained about technical hurdles, including that more work had to be done in the digital semester. At the same time, the students are struggling with stress, have lost jobs, got into debt, had to look after children at home and look after their parents. She praised the fact that the university was accommodating in many things, for example with more flexible exams.

At the same time, the universities are also relying on virtual space in the winter semester. It is true that teachers and students alike want to return to face-to-face events. But currently not to be implemented, although the universities are working on concepts for it. Unlike something in schools, it is much more difficult at universities to keep your distance. “30,000 people come to us,” says Georg Krausch, President of the University of Mainz. There are around 100,000 students at the three universities together. A so-called hot spot could quickly emerge.

The students also mix a lot more, attend different seminars, are not strictly classified according to class. Accordingly, Krausch would like politicians not to allow themselves to be put under pressure, but to continue to listen to advice from science.

There are some good things about digitization, remembers Birgitta Wolff, President of the Frankfurt University. The new course offer, for example, the RMU course, has become a bit lower-threshold. Anyone who studies in virtual space anyway may be less afraid to collect credit points in other places.

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