Saarbrücken Computer Science returns to (hybrid) face-to-face mode

Computer science professor Jan Reineke at the first year students welcome event. Photo: SIC/Philipp Zapf-Schramm

How is the computer science program at Saarland University structured? Which lectures and courses should students attend in their first semester? What exams are scheduled in the first semesters? These and many other questions were answered by the representatives of the computer science programs at Saar University at the hybrid welcome event for first-semester students of the bachelor computer science programs in October 2021. For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was again allowed to take place partly in the face-to-face mode.

Around 90 first-year students of the computer science programs came together for the welcome event in the Günter-Hotz lecture hall on the Saarbrücken campus – for reasons of infection protection – separated spatially and temporally according to the respective fields of study. About the same number of first-year students followed the event online. Following the relaxation of contact restrictions in the Saarland, it has been possible to hold events using the 3G COVID-19 rule again since the start of the 2021/2022 winter semester, meaning that vaccinated, recovered or tested individuals were allowed to be face-to-face.

“I am very happy to be able to welcome our first-year computer science students in the face-to-face mode again and to be able to stand in a lecture hall in person again at all,” said Jan Reineke, professor of computer science at Saarland University and dean of studies at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, in welcoming the students present at the hybrid event. “I think it’s very good that we’re getting a bit more normality back in the winter semester of 2021/2022 and that first-year students can also get to know each other in person.” Nevertheless, online study of all computer science courses during the winter semester is guaranteed by the lecturers, Professor Reineke further emphasizes.

Representatives of the Computer Science, Embedded Systems, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science Teaching, Media Informatics and Cybersecurity majors welcomed their new Bachelor students during the event. In addition to the professional introduction, Dr. Tanja Breinig and her team of the study coordination were available to answer the first-year students’ questions about the study programs. At the end of the welcome event, all first semester students received their “Ersti” bags from the Saarland Informatics Campus with useful little things for the start of their studies. All those who could not attend the presence event can pick up their goodybag at the campus library Mathematics and Informatics.

The day after the welcome event, the student introduction phase for bachelor first year students (Bachelor-StEP) of the computer science student council started. In addition to all kinds of useful information about studying, this virtual orientation event offers the opportunity to get in touch with fellow students and get to know other students until October 15.

Further links to the presence mode:

Uni-Saarland: Information on the coronavirus outbreak

Uni-Saarland: Re-introducing the face-to-face mode!

Uni-Saarland: anonymous survey on COVID-19 vaccination status

Special vaccination offers for students and university employees

Background Saarland Informatics Campus:
800 scientists and about 2100 students from more than 80 nations make the Saarland Informatics Campus (SIC) one of the leading locations for computer science in Germany and Europe. Five world-renowned research institutes, namely the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, the Center for Bioinformatics and the Cluster for “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” as well as Saarland University with three departments and 24 degree programs cover the entire spectrum of computer science.

Editor:
Jan Grolier
Competence Center Computer Science
Saarland Informatics Campus
Phone: +49 681 302-57331
E-Mail: jan.grolier@cs.uni-saarland.de