All about TU Dresden!

Overall, it has been a wonderful experience at TUD. I had a lot of expectations while coming to the University for my masters and having almost done with the course, I can comfortably say that almost all my expectations have been met , with some even exceeded. I made a lot of friends from all parts of the world, attended countless seminars across the continent and met a lot of important people in my field and in general. If academic excellence is your goal and you want to improve yourself, this is certainly one of the place to be.

The course curriculum is very dynamic and include a lot of interaction within students, with the professor as well as adequate interaction with the industry and research institutes. Also there are a lot of courses and field to choose from and specialize into.

The faculty to student ratio fluctuates with courses. Usually for the compulsory courses, its a bit high as everyone enrolls into them. But the electives can be quite nice with as low as even 1:10 or 1:8 ratio. All the faculty and staff are extremely approachable and nice. They have really high qualifications nd academic acumen which reflects in their way of teaching. My personal favorite was Prof. Peter Krebs, who is now the head of the department as well.

There are numerous clubs and activities to be a part of. However, they are a bit competitive as there are limited seats into each of them and they get fill pretty quickly. But since there are a plethora of them, its easy to get into some. Research facilities, libraries and other equipments are well upgraded and in abundance. There is WiFi everywhere in the campus. Also the great thing about the eduroam wifi is that it is available everywhere in the university in Europe and sometimes even outside. I experienced it when I was in Erasmus exchange to Tel Aviv, Israel.

Unfortunately I cannot provide the accurate data as it varies with department and also I have been living in different countries since last 3 semesters. But there are numerous companies and research institutes which have ties with TUD and they regularly visit campus for recruitment, seminars and also provide company visits. If you learn German (minimum B1 level), your life will be very easy in terms of part time and full time opportunities. Median salary is about 55000 €/year gross.

Dresden is a comparatively affordable city so accommodation is not very pricey. Student dorms are even more cheaper and easy to get. Rooms are usually separate with shared washrooms and kitchen facility. But one can also opt for less shared or even personal toilet and kitchen for some extra amount. average rent could be about 300 €/ month including electricity, heating and water if living in a student dorm.

IELTS Score: Overall requirement - 7, with no less that 6.5 in any of the part. GRE is appreciated but not required. My Score: IELTS - 8.5 (Listening - 9.0; Reading, Speaking - 8.5; Writing - 8.0). It asked for 3 LORs, SOP and a descriptive CV. SOP is the one that is the most important. It is thoroughly read so its better to write by yourself and should be personalized. CV should be in the European format, not more than 2 pages. In case of LOR, they send the SOP email directly to the professor/person whose detail you mention. They send them the LOR. The document requirement varies slightly with courses. TUD also asks to send all documents as a hard copy in person/ through post so it need to be kept in mind.

There is no tuition fee (at least that I am aware of). We have semester contribution around 300€/semester. It provides a semester ticket which helps you to travel in public transport free within your city and state (local trains and buses). Also it covers all co-curricular activities, laboratory fees, library fee, student association fee, entertainment fee and what not.

I got the Santander Scholarship later after admission which paid 300 €/month for 6 months. I also got the ERASMUS+ scholarship when I applied for exchange semester at NTNU, Norway. It was 600 €/ month for the time of exchange. These applications would be announced on university websites. It usually requires SOP about your motivation to get the scholarship and how it will benefit you.