1st year of TUM Aerospace Bachelor's: Everything you need to know

What do you actually need to know about the university and degree programme to start off smoothly? As a former TUM Aerospace student, I wrote down a small guide that should help you with your first steps at TUM.

What courses do you need to take throughout your degree?

There are 19 compulsory courses that need to take throughout your studies. In the first semester, you will take:

• Advanced Mathematics for Engineers 1 (GOP)
• Engineering Mechanics 1 (GOP)
• Aerospace Materials Science and Processing
• CAD for Aerospace Engineers
• Computation Foundations 1
• Electrical Engineering
• Introduction to Aerospace

However, in the first semester you will only have 4 exams. That is because Aerospace Materials and Electrical Engineering are year-long courses. Their lectures run through the entire first year, and there is an exam in the 2nd semester. Introduction to Aerospace does not have an exam, only a written report. It is also a pass/fail course.

You can find a list of all the courses (and a lot more info about the degree) here.

What are the GOPs?

GOP stands for Grundlagen- und Orientierungsprüfung, which translates to the Fundamentals and Orientation Examination. It is a course that you must take in the first year of your studies, and you only get 2 attempts at passing it (1 in Semester 1, and 1 in Semester 2). This is scary as in your first year (especially if you fail the first attempt), there is always a chance of being kicked out of the program. If you want to know how to study for those, I wrote out a small guide with some tips here.

Math Precourse

The infamous math pre-course is everyone's first introduction to a lecture at the university. The pre-course is a fast-paced recap of many mathematical concepts that you will learn throughout Math 1 and Math 2. The pre-course starts with a 1.5-hour lecture about a different mathematical concept every day (limits, Gauss elimination and matrices, derivatives…), and ends with a 1.5-hour tutorial session with some upper batch students who scored well in the “Advanced Mathematics for Engineers” (Math 1) course in the 1st semester. The math precourse requires prior registration in TUMOnline.

This course is very famous amongst the aerospace community for being your “Oh Shoot!” moment. The course itself is quite challenging, and the material is covered extremely quickly. Due to this, many students believe it to be the prerequisite knowledge one is supposed to have before starting university. This is not the case at all. The pre-course actually covers most things that you will redo in the “Advanced Mathematics for Engineers” course. It's just there to give you an overview of it, and a recap if it's stuff you learned in high school. Students at BSc. Aerospace students come from many different countries around the world, they all have different syllabi for mathematics, and the university knows that.

All the more advanced mathematical concepts that you might not have had in high school will be retaught during the semester. The pre-course is just there to show you around the block and give you an idea of how the lectures and tutorials behave, and give you a first glance at the lecture halls. If you leave the pre-course and understand everything, congratulations, Math 1 will probably be relatively simple for you. If you're one of the many who leave it understanding absolutely nothing, don't fear too much. Most people are in exactly that situation too, and you'll just learn the materials during the lectures, at the pace the university intends you to.

How and when to register for courses and exams?

Course and exam registrations are separate. That means that even if you are not registered for a course, you can still register for its exam later on. There are mostly unlimited spots in the courses and you do not need to stress too much about it, you can actually register even once the course starts. You can register (and also see all the courses and modules that you will later need to take) through TUM Online under ‘My Studies’. For each course you will see green circles and red triangles. Red triangles are to register for courses, and green circles to register for exams.

Pre-study Internship

The pre-study internship is a mandatory requirement to be able to start writing your bachelor's thesis at TUM Aerospace.

They call it “pre-study”, which many students get stressed about, thinking they need to complete it before even starting the degree. While that might have been the initial idea, the university knows this is not very feasible. You just have to remember to submit an ‘exception’ request to the internship office (write an email) by the end of the 2nd semester, and they will most likely allow you to “prolong” the deadline until the start of your thesis. The internship is ungraded and classified as a pass/fail course.

It is an 8-week (full-time) internship that you have to complete in one of the three categories

• Manufacturing
• Development
• Service/Operations

The pre-study internship needs to be in a different category than your professional internship (an 8-credit internship scheduled for the 5th semester). Therefore, you need to complete 2 of the internship categories throughout your degree, and each category must take at least 4 consecutive weeks. You can also do 4 weeks in one category, and 4 weeks in another category during your pre-study internship.

Theoretically, you do not need to cover any of the categories in the pre-study internship, but then you will have to cover two in the professional internship. This might not be the best choice, as the professional internship is only scheduled for 6-weeks, but you will need to prolong that if you still need to fulfil both categories.

What documents do you need to submit to get your internship improved?

There are 3 documents that you need to prepare in total:

• Pre-study Internship Report
• Internship Certificate (Confirmation of the pre-study internship in the BSc. Aerospace programme)
• Company Reference Letter

Pre-study Internship Report

This is one that you write yourself and it should describe your experience, activities and learnings (you can also include a short company overview). This document does not need to be signed by your company/company supervisor, just your own signature is sufficient.

Internship Certificate (Confirmation of the pre-study internship in the BSc. Aerospace programme)

This is a short form indicating the company name, your position, category that the internship falls under, and number of weeks completed. This document needs to be signed and stamped by the company. You can download the form here.

Company Reference Letter

This should be a short letter written by your internship supervisor stating the duration and nature of your internship, tasks completed, and indicating your work attitude and willingness to learn. This should be signed by the company / your supervisor.

If you have any questions about the validity of your internship, duration, category, or similar, you can always ask the internship office, and they will most likely clear up your confusion.

There is also a long list of internship guidelines that you can read through here.

How to actually find an internship?

Look out for the application windows

There are certain companies that have specific roles for mandatory pre-study internships. Companies like BMW for the automotive industry, Airbus for aerospace or Siemens for machinery should offer those, but you need to look out for the offers and apply at the right time.

Network and ask in smaller companies

However, if you can't find your pre-study internship at a big company, there is no need to panic. You can try applying to / emailing smaller companies and also asking around within your network. That is actually how most students land their pre-study internship. There is always someone who knows someone, and that someone might be just who you need.

Does not need to be in Germany!

Additionally, you can do the internship in any country, it does not need to be completed in Germany (it does not need to be an EU country either). You just have to ensure that the documents you submit are in English.

Do not stress too much about it

To be clear, you do not need to do the internship at a specifically aerospace / mechanical engineering related company. Anything sort of technical should be accepted, and if you are not sure, you can ask the internship office before starting your position. Do not stress too much about it, you can get a much more technical role for your professional internship once you have gained more experience in the field. It might be a challenge to find an advanced role as a first-year student, even more so as a fresh high school graduate. The point of the internship is just that you gain some initial experience and get a feel of the working world.

When to do the internship?

You might be thinking, “When will I have the time to take on a full-time 8-week-long internship”?

You will have a couple of options:

1. Complete the internship right after high school when you most likely have longer holidays
2. Best option: split the internship into 2 4-week positions and fit it around your holidays
3. Take an “Urlaubsemester” (one semester off) - to be allowed to take that, you need to provide proof of your internship position beforehand (not recommended)
4. Do it during the semester, skip the lectures and only show up to the exams (technically there is no mandatory attendance, but also not recommended)

Student Clubs and when to join them

Student clubs are a core part of many TUM students' lives. And it makes sense, whatever club you join will provide you with real hands-on experience. The most commonly joined clubs for aerospace students are Warr and Horyzn.

Warr is the most directly aerospace-driven team and consists of 4 subteams:

• Rocketry - Rockets for competition
• Move - Satellites
• Robotics - Robots
• Space Labs - Biology components for space

Many students from aerospace join Warr rocketry or Move due to its high relevance in the aerospace sector. These clubs are worth joining if you want to learn more about specific topics in more depth, or if you want to try manufacturing. As a member of Warr, you can participate in workshops hosted by ‘Makerspace’ that teach you how to use machines for manufacturing (CNC machine, milling, laser cutters, etc.).

Horyzn teaches students similar skills but works with drones. In Horyzn, students can additionally get licenses (for free) for drone flying in Germany.

When to join?

Student clubs do consume a lot of time, especially if you are a higher-ranking member (like a team lead). For this reason, I'd recommend joining after you've completed your GOPs. As a first-semester student, you're still learning a lot about the university, and the GOPs should take priority. You also haven't yet learnt enough to meaningfully contribute. As a result, you'll spend a lot of time learning something that would be common knowledge to you if you had just joined slightly later. For the first semester, focus on doing well in the GOPs, making new friends at the university, and seeing how you are able to manage your own schedule before taking on an additional 5-10 hours/week at a student club.

Student club as professional internship

The hours you spend working actively on a student club can be used as your professional internship. It works similarly to doing it at a company, where you require 240 hours of labour for the internship to be recognised.

The advantages of doing this at a student club are:

• You can schedule the hours throughout a much longer duration during your studies. Student clubs usually require you to work 5-10 hours/week. These hours can be completed when you're a bit more free (over the weekend, for example). Student clubs are generally quite lenient on giving time off during exam phases. If you join in your second semester, you will comfortably have 240 hours done by the time you graduate. This means you don't need to take an additional “Urlaubsemester” to do a full-time internship.
• Finding the role is easier. Student clubs are voluntary work. Therefore, you will always find an opening in a team. This is a much more secure spot than trying to find an internship position at a company.

Log your hours

If you plan on using a student club as your professional internship, log your hours as soon as you start. Whenever you are working on a task, write down the date, the time period you worked on it, and a small note stating what you did. The note does not have to be detailed, just a couple of comments about the task. The long explanation goes in a report, similar to the one done in the pre-study internship.

However, joining a company, of course, also comes with its own benefits (future prospects, being paid for the hours, etc.). The choice of where to do your professional internship should come down to this: If you value graduating in 6 semesters, choose a student club. If you value real experience, choose a company for your professional internship. Of course, nothing stops you from joining a student club on the side, and still doing an internship elsewhere.

Garching - Ottobrunn campuses

As an aerospace student, you are expected to attend lectures in the Garching and the Ottobrunn Campuses. This is different from any other degree, where the entire degree is held on the same campus.

Garching and Ottobrunn are over an hour away from each other. Your schedule will have different days of the week on different campuses. For the first two semesters, you will have 1 day in Garching and 3-4 days in Ottobrunn. It is very strongly recommended to get a place close to Ottobrunn instead of Garching. Garching campus has many students, as all other STEM degrees are situated there. As a result, apartment searches near Garching campus in September are heavily saturated with other students. Ottobrunn, on the other hand, is only for aerospace students, so there is significantly less competition for accommodation there.

Ottobrunn is also the campus you spend the majority of your time in, so it just makes sense to be close to there.

There is a shuttle bus running roughly 2x/week between Garching and Ottobrunn. These shuttle buses are scheduled for more senior students who take electives between campuses on the same day, not for first semesters. You should not rely on this mode of transport to get to your campus, but note that it's there.