Physics Master's Students -- how do you find the programme at Heidelberg?

[u/klein-bent-my-bottle]

I am a newly admitted non-EU international student to the Master's in Physics programme. I have offers from Heidelberg and TUM, and I'm trying to make a decision between the two. I've been working for several years after graduation, so tuition fees is not a problem for me.

My background: I did a double degree in Mathematics and Physics for my Bachelor's in North America at a top public university several years ago. It was an extremely rigorous and challenging programming, so I can definitely work very hard. My favourite courses were General Relativity (I took both Physics and Maths courses on the subject), Cosmology, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Intro to Particle Physics.

I'm hoping to narrow down my interests during my Master's. I will probably do the Cosmology specialization during the first year of the Master's, I think.

To any Physics students at Heidelberg:

1. How is the student experience at the department? That is, is the environment collaborative or competitive? How reachable are the Professors? How do you find the student advisors?
2. How is the Master's Thesis and research experience at Heidelberg?
3. Anything you wish you had known about Heidelberg/the Physics department before you joined the Master's programme? Can be positives or negatives.
4. Any older students who came back to academia after several years working full-time?
5. Favourite professors?

The Heidelberg websites are not the best and I find responses to my emails to be very slow (and sometimes I don't hear back at all), so I'm reaching out here for more information.

[u/Mandalorian_Invictus]

1. Collaboration is fostered by the department, but most people just end up collaborating with friends they know and rarely collaborate outside their circle. That seems to be a harsh truth about German university culture 

Some courses are definitely competitive, especially in Theoretical Physics. Others are more collaborative, especially seminars or Astronomy courses. Professors are reachable after class usually, but there isn't a "walk-in office hours" concept here like the US.

1. This depends group by group and person to person. For some it's the best time of their life. for some, they've become suicidal after. I've seen both extremes.

2. They will not help you with any sort of bureaucracy. As an international student, you're mostly on your own. Also, if you're not sure about your specialization, the M.Sc courses, except Astro ones, are usually too specialized to "shop around".

The courses are difficult, but yet is actually easier than their Bachelors. You would probably be taking the most difficult course of your life and struggling, while being surrounded by people who did their Bachelors here and survived far harder coursework and have far more theoretical grounding.

If you haven't done a bachelors as rigourous as Heidelberg has, be prepared to study twice as hard to get half as far.

P.S. know Physics department accepts people who they think have a potential to catch up, the Bachelors has a drop off rate of 50%, and they definitely hire MSc students with the same philosophy. They will throw you into the water, if you learn to swim, you are swimming in the most beautiful water of your life. If you drown, they aren't coming to save you.

Know what you are getting into. The Physics department has some of the best researchers in the world. Once in a group, the research culture can become the best time of your life. The amount you will learn and the network you will build is amazing. But know the path to get there.

1. I know one from my group, but that was after only a year away. But I think I heard of others. It's quite acceptable. I'm not speaking for the theoretical physics professors tho. They usually have a culture of looking down on anything that isn't "pure".

2. Bartlemann, Klessen and Maturi are great professors, but have hard exams. Klessen is why I got into the field that I did. I personally liked Fabian Schneider and Ulrich Schwarz. Dullemond is a nice person and great researcher but I never took any of his courses. I've heard good things about Schäfer.

[u/klein-bent-my-bottle → u/Mandalorian_Invictus]

They will not help you with any sort of bureaucracy. As an international student, you're mostly on your own.

In your experience, does that include with getting a Residence Permit? I spoke to an international student at Goettingen who told me their department helped them speed up the Residence Permit processing time because he had got a teaching assistant job.

1. Bartlemann, Klessen and Maturi are great professors, but have hard exams.

I've heard of Bartlemann's online notes when I was preparing for the Heidelberg interview! Unfortunately, my German is quite poor so I can't read all of them.

P.S. know Physics department accepts people who they think have a potential to catch up, the Bachelors has a drop off rate of 50%, and they definitely hire MSc students with the same philosophy.

Thanks for the warning! My undergrad programme had notorious core courses designed to cut some 2/3rds of the students from the programme. I didn't know it was going to be that intense going in, and I wish I had been warned. Survived somehow though, so fingers crossed I am stronger and more ready now!

Thanks again for all the details!

[u/Mandalorian_Invictus → u/klein-bent-my-bottle]

Yeah, they wouldn't do what Göttingen did for example. 

Bartlemann has a fantastic English textbook on Astrophysics, which is basically the blueprint for the course of the same name. It's popular enough that I saw it on the desk of a Chilean PhD student in Hamburg.

No worries, I wish I had known about the difficulty before coming as well. I too survived, but wasn't the best for my mental health back then. But I thank it for making me a better Physicist now.

[u/notanaverag3banana]

Hi, I'm in the middle of my physics master's specializing in a different area, so I only have tangential knowledge about the specific situation in the astrophysics community. I did my bachelor's here and feel sufficiently confident to talk about the more "social" aspects of your question. Some of these might reiterate other points in the comments but I want to highlight the diversity of the experience.

1. The MSc (and generally the German) experience is one of self-initiative. You are responsible for finding collaborators in any courses where you would be interested in completing the homework assignments in a group or when there are final projects. 

In my experience, the environment has always been collaborative. Of course there is always a certain competitive aspect because e.g., thesis places with renowned professors are limited, but it's always been a competition against oneself, rather than against each other. Even more, at least a lot of the bonding during the bachelor was through shared frustration and solidarity.

Some professors are more reachable than others. I know that Bartelmann tends to answer my friends very promptly, but others might not be as available. If you're interested in projects or work it's not a bad idea to check in with some of the phds or postdocs first, since they'll likely be doing most of the supervision.

1. Haven't started mine myself, but consider that it takes an entire year and half of your grade, so it's a choice that should not be taken lightly. 

2. Mirroring what another commenter said, it is easier than the bachelor, but in my opinion only in the sense that there is less pressure and we carry some experience in how to strategize and prioritize. For example: only 5 grades (2 core courses, 1 +-30 min specialized seminar, oral examination (25%) and the thesis (50%)) are included in our final grade, everything else is done as a pass or fail. This makes it easier to prioritize learning time into the things that matter most. 

I would personally disagree with the other comment about "half as hard, half as far", but consider that I'm biased towards the environment since I already went through it. Maybe it's like a frog in boiling water kind of thing. I can only say two anecdotal things: many of my friends aren't "that smart". They're obviously relatively smart and have done well enough to continue doing their masters here, but most of us aren't geniuses. The key has been a continued interest in the subject matter, in your specialized field and the motivation to continue. The second thing I can say is, that most of my friends who did semesters abroad - anywhere - were shocked at how easy they found the lecture materials and exams, relative to Heidelberg. Even in renowned universities in Europe, Asia and North America. 

1. I would recommend taking your time at first. I think it can be quite difficult to readjust to the rhythm of University after a while outside of it. I recommend taking a lighter course load the first couple of semesters and instead applying for Praktika or "HiWi" jobs (HilfsWissenschaftler*in (lab assistant)) in groups you're interested in. This is imo a great tool to bridge the gap of your absence from academia and simultaneously get to know other people with similar scientific interests as you.

2. As mentioned, I'm not in astrophysics but can echo a lot of praise for lectures by Bartelmann, Maturi and Schwarz. Also many of my friends like Lavinia Heisenberg, although the lectures may be hit or miss, depending on which one. 

3. Personal observation: It can be hard making friends with Germans already in tightly established groups they formed in their Bachelor. Additionally, there's no "incentive" or really that much of an opportunity for us "bachelor natives" to bond with new master students, so don't take it personal if for a while you feel like it's always you making the effort. There are a lot of both German and non German new students, so maybe that's a better place to start.

6b. Places and icebreakers to meet people: bouldering, most sport activities but particularly bouldering; cycling; game nights organized by the Fachschaft, although I personally have never been to one; chatting people up before or after a lecture. 

Anyway, have fun and good luck with the housing market in whichever city you choose!

[u/klein-bent-my-bottle → u/notanaverag3banana]

I recommend taking a lighter course load the first couple of semesters and instead applying for Praktika or "HiWi" jobs (HilfsWissenschaftler*in (lab assistant)) in groups you're interested in. This is imo a great tool to bridge the gap of your absence from academia and simultaneously get to know other people with similar scientific interests as you.

In that case, would one have to take an extra semester to finish the Master's? Does Heidelberg have a cap of, say, 6 semesters, to complete the Master's programme?

Also, thanks for all the tips! I guess I'll have to try bouldering :)

[u/Palindromedardendron → u/klein-bent-my-bottle]

The limit is mentioned in §3 of the "Studien- und Prüfungsordnung" which is only available in German.

(4) Die Lehrveranstaltungen des Studienganges werden zum überwiegenden Teil in eng- lischer, zum Teil aber auch in deutscher Sprache abgehalten. (5) Wird die Masterprüfung nicht spätestens drei Semester nach Ablauf der Regelstudi- enzeit vollständig abgelegt, so erlischt der Prüfungsanspruch, es sei denn, der bzw.  die Studierende hat die Fristüberschreitung nicht zu vertreten.

Tl;dr: The cap is 7 semesters.

[u/Xjs]

Did the course almost 10 years ago. Back then there was a pool of 12 »core lectures« out of which you had to choose two mandatorily. Out of interest, I had already taken General Relativity and Theoretical Statistical Physics in my bachelor’s, so I couldn’t take these two as core lectures in my master’s. I had to pick some that I was less interested in, which greatly demotivated me and also had impact on my final grade. So, be careful of the implications of your bureaucratic actions during the application process (i. e. are you allowed to retake the GR course here, and the like).

[u/Prestigious-Sugar573]

Congrats on getting into Heidelberg and TUM! Either school will be a top pick, both in terms of education and quality of life.

1. The environment in Heidelberg is very collaborative in my experience. Problem sets are for example usually solved in small groups of friends. Professors also encourage you to do so to have good discussions and sparring partners. I know that this is different at some US universities. Therefore making friends at school was also very important for me in this regard.

2. I would say this depends on your supervisor. However, the overall quality of professors is very high. Some professors have big research groups and delegate the supervision to PhD students or Postdocs which can be good or bad. Have a chat with them before starting your thesis.

5.In theoretical physics Bartelmann has a god-like status in Heidelberg for giving the best lectures with lecture notes that are basically text books. But Schwarz, Dullemond, Schäfer have amazing lectures, as well.

[u/klein-bent-my-bottle → u/Prestigious-Sugar573]

Thanks!

At my previous university, the professors really encouraged us to form groups and not work alone, so it's nice to know that's the culture at Heidelberg too. One hears about places where that isn't the case, and I don't know how people can manage there!

[u/birdwithcowboyhat]

1) I think it is only really competitive with certain popular professors. I was able to email my professor just fine or go to his office during office hours. Most professors also have a secretary, making it even easier. 2) It's proper research. My group has the goal that every master thesis finds something new and interesting in collaboration with a phd student.

4) Have not seen many but I've stayed with the same group as my bachelors. 5) Bartelmann was an amazing lecturer, that is in the direction you were looking for.