Starter's Guide for First Semesters

Welcome to the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Paderborn!

You have decided to study in Paderborn? So let's not waste any time and get to know the university and the city. We have compiled some background information, which will show you highlights of Paderborn and what is being offered for the time you spend outside lectures, tutorials and seminars.

For a smooth start into the new semester we have prepared some additional information for you. Below you will find some key points, which you should observe at the beginning.

The assistance system for university and teaching in Paderborn (PAUL) is available for online applications, registration of events and for exam registration. Upon successful application, you will set up your PAUL account using your IMT-TAN (see section IMT). You thereby get registered first for events within the registration phases (in German). During the semester you may register for exams of your choice within the exam registration phase. Since every student is entitled to withdraw from the examination until one week before the fixed date without stating any reasons, this may also be communicated via PAUL with just a few clicks.

Furthermore, PAUL offers some organizational features, e.g. after having registered for your events a schedule will be generated automatically. The internal message system also allows lecturers to announce schedule changes or to publish course material. To save you from missing out on anything, be advised to activate the automatic email forwarding to your university mail account as described in section MY DATA.

Now and again you will come across these two offices whilst being a student. 

The Student Registration Office (in German) is the right contact for: enrolment and changing courses, verifications, re-registration, application for leave of absence and withdrawal. The Examinations Office (in German) handles individual exam registrations, evidence of achievement, registration and submission of final year theses, certificates and official documents

The student representatives of electrical engineering (in German) offer advise on how to prepare for your exams by lending out previous exam papers, operating the E-lab (in German) and organizing festivities and events, which are most popular among our students. By the way, the students' office (P1.5.16) is always a great place to meet and greet new fellow students!

The student counselling team is in charge of all organisational and legal issues during your studies. So, for queries on exam procedures or how to organize your semester schedule, just call in during our office hours.

The centre for Information and Media Technology IMT (in German) is in charge of the central IT-services of the university. To be able to make full use of these services, you are required to first create your own IMT account. In the following the services are described in detail.

Once you are registered with the centre for Information and Media Technology (IMT), you'll be granted access to a number of services you may wish to activate and administer. You will be given a university email account with 200MB storage. You can login to this e-mail service (in German) via various mail clients or simply via a web-browser.

In order to make use of our library's large number of e-resources from home, you must first be granted access to the Virtual Private Network VPN (in German). The required certificate is available from the IMT.

To access the university WiFi network you can either use

  • The unencrypted "webauth"-network with your IMT login or
  • The encrypted "eduroam"-network with a certificate issued by the IMT

Our department provides computer pools and a learning centre (in German) with suitable software to the students (e.g. MATLAB). To be granted access to these rooms, an access card must be applied for at the Computer Operations Group.

Moreover all students may obtain free licences for Microsoft products by activating the service of Microsoft DreamSpark in section IMT User Administration.