International students

Welcome at the Institute of History of Art and Archeology at the University of Bonn

This page will provide you with practical information and important links to help you plan and prepare for your time as a student at the University of Bonn.

International Office

For general information regarding the necessary formalities before and after your arrival in Bonn and concerning accommodation, language courses, etc. please see the homepage of the International Office. The International Office is at the very centre of the University of Bonn's international exchange activities. It provides support and advice to international students enrolled at the University of Bonn as well as to those interested in studying here. It also runs the so-called "International Club", a perfect place to meet German and international students, which offers a wide range of activities, such as excursions, discussion groups, film nights and theatre visits. The International Office also offers a wide range of German language classes at different levels in order to help you prepare for your studies or to improve your German while enrolled at the University of Bonn. Plus, you find important information in its Erasmus Student Guide which you can download below.
Guide for Erasmus Students

Studying at our Institute of History of Art and Archeology from the perspective of an ERASMUS-student:

"A year at the art historical Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn, Germany, is for an art-historian / artist quite an experience. The
town itself has very beautiful architecture and an interesting structure with the sense of a true European bourgeois living and cultural history.

Being in Bonn, one feels being so close to the art history of Europe. This is no periphery, this is where many things have been going on for two thousand years.

Studying as an Erasmus student you take part at the lectures (Vorlesungen), or you work in different seminars. Whatever you do, it's quite important to have a course of German before you come. German culture includes an analytical and theoretical point of view as the starting point of looking at art. "Die Vorlesungen" are such a priviledge to attend and to receive information, and in the seminars you work in small groups and are supposed to attend the discussion. The library is like a treasure trunk for research. If you don't find your field of interest here, you are studying the wrong subject and maybe should turn to medical sciences. The only problem with the library is, that it may be difficult to focus on your own subject or to avoid short term affairs with books like "Mosaic pavements in Ancient England".

As a student who has passed the "Einführung in die Benützung der Bibliothek und Diathek", you can also use the Diathek (slide library) which has a wonderful collection of visual material easy to access. The assistants are very helpful and the great classification system helps you to find out e.g. which different subjects Whistler included in his art, and then maybe you can compare the "Bildnis" of biblical Mythology in Rembrandt's and El Greco's art.

Summa summarum: Take everything out of your year as a exchange student. Gather material for you own future, and gather friends, contacts from different parts of the world, cause that what Bonn is; a young international city of students."

Anna Hall, Finnland (6/2007)