FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

The CMS program cannot guarantee that there are no scheduling conflicts between courses. If you find a conflict between COR-* courses and / or mandatory courses please inform the cms-admin about it. We will try to solve that problem. If the overlap involves non-mandatory courses (e.g., from a catalogue module), then you must choose a different course. Due to the large number of elective courses you can choose from, we cannot provide non-overlapping times for all possible combinations of them. The week simply does not have enough hours.

Every course has a web page containing more information, slide decks, exercise sheets, and syllabus. You can find these pages by going to the web page of the teacher/professor or the respective research group and looking for the “Teaching” or “Education” sub-pages. Alternatively, perform a search on the TU Dresden web page or your favorite internet search engine. Sometimes, links to course web pages can also be found in SELMA. Always check the information on the course web page before contacting the lecturer with your question. 

If you contacted a lecturer or professor with a question and got no reply, it could mean that the answer to your question can be found on the web page of the course (see above), the CMS web pages (i.e., here), or the study regulations. Please go read these sources and try to find your answer before contacting anyone. It can also mean that they are not the right person to contact. Often students contact lecturers in cases where they should instead have contacted the study office, the examination office, their mentor, or cms-admin. Please check the information at the beginning of this page. If you contacted your mentor with a request for meeting, and you got no reply, please contact the secretary/office of your mentor and schedule an appointment. Professors often do not manage their calendars themselves, but their offices/secretaries schedule appointments. Also, every mentor has a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) student assigned (see “Mentoring” page for details) that you can contact as a relay. In the very worst case, if you do not get any reply even from the office and it is urgent, try calling them over phone. 

This typically means one of two things: (1) the course is taught in English unless all students know German; then it is in German. (2) the lecture is in English but the slides in German, or vice versa. To find out which one applies, contact the lecturer or see the course web page.

CMS is an international master’s program, and we guarantee that the program can be completed without knowing German. Students who do know German, however, may find a larger selection of choices in the catalogue modules, as they can also take subject-relevant courses from other, German-language degree programs at TU Dresden. If you do not know German, then simply ignore these courses and make your selection from amongst the English-language ones. 

All registration or de-registration for modules, courses, and exams is via the SELMA system of TU Dresden. Registration in SELMA is always required for any course. Please remember to always first register for modules, then for the courses within those modules, and then for the exams of the courses. Registration of a course does not imply registration of the exam. For some courses the additional registration via OPAL is required. Please see the respective course web site.

If a course is taught online, or has eLearning components, registration on the eLearning platform used may be required in addition to registration in SELMA. Please see the respective course web site. Importantly, registration to a certain eLearning platform (like OPAL) does NOT constitute or imply registration to the course itself. The official, administrative registration on SELMA is always required, even if a course additionally also uses another platform provided by the professor.

You can find more information about the fast track to PhD option on the respective page of the CMS web site. Please read it carefully. If your question is not answered there, then please contact your mentor or the PhD program of interest.
 

Please contact the Study Office. They run the SELMA system and can look into it.

Please make sure you have successfully registered for the module before intending to register for a course. Likewise, you will only see the exam registration option after having registered for the course. If the problem persists, please contact the Study Office. 

It is possible to change track once, even after having been admitted, or after already having studied parts of another track. In order to change track, please go to “Forms” and download the form “Application for change of track”. Fill in the form, get the required signature, and submit the form to the CMS examination board. We suggest you first get the signature of the coordinator of the new track, who needs to check that you fulfill the admission requirements for the new track. S/he also needs to check that you have not missed any mandatory modules of the new track, and that the change of track is not going to delay your studies. Once the new track coordinator approves your change into the new track, the coordinator of the old track signs to confirm that s/he has been informed of the change. You will then be assigned a new mentor in the new track, by the track coordinator of the new track.

You can change your selection of COR-* modules once, even after you have taken the exams. This can be useful, for example, if you fail the exam in a COR-* module and believe that you will also fail the retake exam. Once a change has been made, no further changes are possible, and you must then pass the selected modules in order to continue your studies in CMS. A change in COR-* module choice is possible by written request to the CMS Examination Board. Please use the corresponding form and send it to the examination office after completing it. They will forward your request to the Examination Board for approval.

Yes, you can. In addition to your obligatory language courses, every CMS student is allowed to take up to  4 hours/week  of language courses for free. Should you wish to attend more language courses, you can always apply for remaining course places via the language course registration system. The language courses are offered by TU Dresden for free.

You must take 2 hours/week of training in Good Scientific Practice, plus AT LEAST 2 hours/week of language courses. Please see the module descriptions for details. 

If you can demonstrate (e.g., by language certificates or native language knowledge) that you already master both German and English on level C1 or better, then you can also take language courses in any other language offered by TUDIAS. If either your German or English knowledge is below C1, then you must take German or English courses. 
 

Yes, you can do that. There is no requirement to complete the module in the first semester, although it is recommended. If you take the language course in a later semester, however, keep in mind that the module will only be completed then and you only get the credits after finishing the language course.

First, think about what your would like to do and where your scientific interests lie. Then, search the web pages of TU Dresden or talk with your mentor to find professors or research groups working in that area, and contact them to see if they have projects to offer. The process of thinking about your personal goals, researching the landscape, and contacting people is an important part of the learning experience and the skills you are expected to gain in this module.

Once you have found a professorship or research group that has a project you like, you and your project supervisor can download the Form “Registration research project” from the “Forms” page of the CMS website or get it from the examination office. You and your supervisor together write the task description for the project and the deliverables (what needs to be achieved to pass? what needs to be achieved for a top grade?), as well as the submission deadline according to the module description. After submitting this form to the examination office, you can start working on the project. 

The supervisor of your project has to be a Professor TU Dresden who has the right of examination and grading. The daily mentoring on the project can be done by someone else (typically a scientist in the group of the professor, or a an external scientist if you do your project outside TU Dresden). The professor who is administratively responsible for the module CMS-PRO (see module description) is not automatically the supervisor of any project. The supervisor needs to have deep academic expertise in the topic area of the project and is typically the person together with whom the project has been defined, or a TU Dresden professor from that scientific field.

Yes, you can. We actually encourage you to look for projects in non-university research institutes (e.g. Max Planck Institutes, Fraunhofer Institutes, Helmholtz Institutes, or Leibnitz Institutes), in other universities (in Germany or abroad), or in companies.
In addition to your project supervisor in the hosting institution, however, you then also additionally need a TU Dresden Professor as a grader. It is the student’s responsibility to find a professor who is willing to and has the knowledge to competently grade the project topic chosen. The professor needs to sign the project application form to confirm. 

 

According to the module description, the exam for the research projects consists of both a written project report (“Projektarbeit”), which should take about 120 hours to be written, and an oral presentation (“Referat”) of 30 minutes duration in English. The report and presentation are graded separately. 

The regular processing time for project work and written project report is 16 weeks. After the project report has been submitted, the oral presentation takes place as arranged between the examiner and the student.

First, think about what your would like to do and where your scientific interests lie. Then, find other students with similar interest to form a team (2-4 CMS students from any track). Search the web pages of TU Dresden or talk with your mentor to find professors or research groups working in that area, and contact them to see if they have projects to offer. The process of thinking about your personal goals, connecting with like-minded colleagues, researching the landscape, and contacting people is an important part of the learning experience and the skills you are expected to gain in this module. 

Once you have found a professorship or research group that has a project you like, your team and your project supervisor can download the Form “Task description of team project” on the “Forms” page of the CMS website or get it the examination office. Your team and supervisor together write the task description for the project and the deliverables (what needs to be achieved to pass? what needs to be achieved for a top grade?), as well as the submission deadline according to the module description. After submitting this form to the examination office, you can start working on the project. 

Yes, you can. We actually encourage you to look for projects in non-university research institutes (e. g. Max Planck Institutes, Fraunhofer Institutes, Helmholtz Institutes, or Leibnitz Institutes) or in companies. In addition to your project supervisor in the hosting institution, however, you then also additionally need a TU Dresden Professor as a grader. It is the student’s responsibility to find a professor who is willing to and has the knowledge to competently grade the project topic chosen. The professor needs to sign the project application form to confirm. 

This is regulated in the module description. It typically consists of a written report (“project work” / “Projektarbeit”) and an oral presentation. The module description also specifies how many hours of work the actual writing of the report should be, and how long the presentation should be. Since each member of the team is graded individually, please make sure every team member gets to present one part of the final presentation, and that the report makes it clear who wrote which part or contributed what (an author contribution statement is a great way of doing this).