UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

The short-term study programme gives you access to a large number of Bachelor and Master modules from the various departments of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Additionally, you can attend courses from UoC’s Studium Integrale and in the Department for German as a Foreign Language.

Course listings for Erasmus / Short-term Students - Winter semester 2025/26

The courses of the summer semester 2026 will be published on KLIPS 2.0 on February 3, 2026.

Module guide for Erasmus / Short-term Students (Faculty of Arts and Humanities)
> Information on all modules: ECTS credits, co-requisite courses, workload reduced options, exams

Please note that all study programmes at the University of Cologne are structured into modules. A module is a teaching unit that is made up of one to five thematically related courses/classes that must be taken together (for example: 1 lecture + 1 seminar + 1 practical course + 1 exam). In many modules, reduced workload options are available for short-term students (see module guide).

Detailed information on UoC's module system as well as rules and instructions for course selection can be found here: Course Selection - Instructions for short-term students at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

The African Studies (Master), English Studies (Bachelor / Master) and Social and Cultural Anthropology (Master) programmes are entirely taught in English. The language of instruction in the other programmes is German.

In the following programmes, a few courses are usually offered in English (1.) or in other languages (2.):

1. African Studies (Bachelor), Archaeology (Master), China Studies (Master), Digital Humanities (Master), History (Master), Linguistics & Phonetics, Media Culture Studies, Musicology, Philosophy, Social and Cultural Anthropology  (Bachelor), Slavonic Studies etc.
    
2. Dutch Studies (Dutch), History (Spanish), Romance Studies (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish), Scandinavian and Finnish Studies (Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish), Slavonic Studies (Polish, Russian).

How to look up the language of instruction of a course/class in KLIPS 2.0: instructions.

ERASMUS+ and other exchange students at the University of Cologne are offered the chance to participate in one free German language course per semester by the Department of German as a Foreign Language (DaF):

• Pre-semester course in September or March (online course): four-week intensive course comprised of 20 hours per week (9 ECTS) or
• In-semester course (in-person course with online parts*): language course comprised of 6 hours per week during the semester (9 ECTS)

Students, who wish to take both courses (pre-semester course and in-semester course) in one semester, will be charged a course fee of 250€ for the second course.

*The courses at level A1 (CEF) are tutored self-study modules and completely online.

Registration
Nominated exchange students of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities will receive an e-mail with a link to online registration in May (for the fall/winter courses) or November (for the spring/summer courses). They must then take an online placement test (only students with prior knowledge of German).

Foreign Language Teaching Assistants and enrolled Master's or Doctoral students interested in taking a German language course please directly refer to the German as a Foreign Language Department (DaF) for registration.

If you are coming to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for a short-term study abroad, you have to submit a Learning Agreement, i.e. a list of your desired modules and courses to philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de for approval by mid-August (winter semester) or end of February (summer semester). Winter semester's course listings are published in mid-July, summer semester's course listings at the beginning of February.

Rules and instructions on how to select courses and format your Learning Agreement can be found here: Course Selection - Instructions for short-term students at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

You should choose your modules and courses in coordination with your advisor at your home university, as this is the only way to ensure that your home university will accept the credits you earned during your stay at the University of Cologne.

Learning Agreement form
If you are participating in the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union, your home university will usually provide you with a specific form for the Learning Agreement or ask you to fill in an Online Learning Agreement (OLA). In case your home university doesn't provide a form or you would like to discuss a draft Learning Agreement with us first, you can use this template.

Following the approval of your Learning Agreement (see above) by philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de, you have to register yourself for the courses/classes.

Course registration - Instructions for short-term students at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Registration for courses is done online via KLIPS 2.0 during designated course registration periods. During that time, students may submit "course place requests" (applications for courses). At the end of the registration period, course seats are allocated through a lottery system. You will be informed, if you have received a "confirmed place" in your desired classes.

Course registration periods winter semester 2025/26:

• Publication of course listings: July 15, 2025
• 1st Registration period: July 16 to August 5, 2025
• 2nd Registration period: August 26 to September 24, 2025
• 3rd Registration period: starting October 9, 2025 (only for left-over places and waiting list)

Generally, we recommend applying for a few more courses than you actually need because in seminars, practical courses, and language classes the number of course places is limited. Please make sure to avoid timetable clashes.