Technische Universität Munich

Last week I took a look at the excellent Information System course in the University of Mannheim. Now it's time to compare this to the famous Technische Universität of Munich. Let's see if it has a chance against this giant.

I start with some impressions of the city and uni, because i was there last weekend to visit my friend John who is living there (he showed me the city really well) and my uncle and his family.

My friend John in front of the Isartor

The street where John lives. The neighborhood is really cool and in the heart of Munich. I could stay at his place 3 days, I loved this trip so much!!

The uni building from outside...

...and inside. Look at this huge slide, four floors high! Apparently you can use it, but i didn't realize it when I was there!! arrrgh!

These poeple were smarter than me:

In Munich you even drink your beer for lunch.... in the uni-canteen!

Lecture hall inside

Program Content

Courses offered

The program wanna teach you basics for jobs like Software Architects, IT- Project Managers, IT-Consultants, and for IT-Service-Management. They seem to focus especially on a career aim as CIO (chief information officer), you might have heard of CEO or CFO, so CIO is the highest position in companies in the IT area.

Most courses are taught in German.

The course program is much more structured than that in Mannheim. You can choose very less courses. We definitely have a focus on IT (almost everything happens in the informatics faculty). We have the following parts. I put them in the same format as in Mannheim to make the whole thing comparable:

1. Fundamentals: 61 ECTS (25 IT, 15 IS, 21 Business Administration)

2. Specialization Track: 6 ECTS

3. Team Project: 10 ECTS

4. Softskills: 13 ECTS

5. Master Thesis: 30 ECTS

When you look at all this, you realize that there is a lot less room for specialization. The Fundamentals consist of:

- 25 ECTS IT lectures, 8 of them for the a CIO simulation
- 15 ECTS IS lectures

- 21 ECTS business lectures

Most of the lectures are mandatory (things like databases, software engineering and information management). Even the modules declared as compulsory optional, give you only the choice out of 2 (!) subjects. For instance, the subject Operations Management gives you the choice out of logistics and production systems.

The Specialization Track is said to prepare you for the following jobs:

- IT-consulting
- IT-management
- CIO

Unfortunately, the whole thing is only a 6 ECTS - lecture, so it is not a major part of this program.

The Team Project is similar to the one in Mannheim, it gives you 10 ECTS and is only one term long.

Softskills and Master Thesis are similar to Mannheim as well.

As you can see, Munich is in some ways the opposite of Mannheim.

- Focus strongly on IT instead of Business Administration
- Most courses are mandatory. Might be the best if you are not sure yet what to do, so you are guided through the whole program. On the other hand you miss the variety of choices.

Faculties involved

A good 80 % of the program happen at the IT faculty in Garching (a small town near Munich).  The other 20 % (the business courses) take place in the economics faculty in the inner city.The program is organized by 3 chairs.


Academic Focus

Research is just awesome at the TU. 22 professors research topics like robotics, augmented reality and much more. An example for the robotic develepment you gonna find here (they try to make pancakes!).

Program Quality

Accreditation


The same as in Mannheim, I didn't find accreditation here. The program started 5 years earlier than that in Mannheim, in winter 2004. That should have given them enough time to get experience and correct mistakes.


Reputation

According to the HR ranking of Wirtschaftswoche, TUM is
- the top 2 in information systems (behind Darmstadt)
- the top 3 in computer science 
- not even in the top 20 in business administration 

The Focus ranking puts TUM's computer science on rank 2 (behind Karlsruhe).

At CHE Zeit ranking TUM's IT faculty is in the middle group in most aspects (overall mark 2.0, same as Mannheim).


The Handelsblatt says TUM's business administration is on rank 8 in Germany.

THE ranking says TUM is on rank 101 woldwide, which means rank 4 amongst German unis.

Compared to Mannheim, TU is slightly better in IT, Mannheim is slightly better in business, TU as a whole has better reputation on an international level.

Besides, TUM is part of the excellent initiave and highly supported by German government.

Admission

Even though I don't know how many students get declined, they have quite a tough admission process. Besides the usual motivation letter, you need to send in an essay (I know some ppl that even didn't apply because of this :O ). Than you get some points between 0 and 100. Less than 33 means you are declined, less than 66 means you get an interview and might pass, more than 66 means you are immediately accepted.

Infrastructure

Everything fine here, they have at least 3 huge lecture halls and some spread out over the campus in Garching. Have a look at the library of the LMU in Munich (exam time, therefore crowded):

 

Program attendants

 And again, let's check out the statistics.  I also took a picture of a poster found in the campus itself:

Out of the 24.500 students there are 33% famale students (however, seeing the campus in Garching, it seemed more like 5-10 % over there -_-) and we have more than 4.000 foreigners (17 %)! This is quite amazing. The campus seems also quite international, mostly I heard the students talking in English.

Surprisingly, the master program is not larger than the one in Mannheim (page 13 of 2009 statistics): In total we count 84 students, 15 of them female and 19 of them foreigners. In the winter term 24 joined. Interesting: There were 21 finishing the program as well, 13 of them in 4 terms. That means we have a very low rate of people that quit (like a master program is sopposed to).

Internationality

As said earlier, the campus is very international, even though the program itself is almost fully in German. I talked to the foreign affairs advisor and there are basically two options: Going out with ERASMUS in the 3. term, but this is the summer term and as the summer term starts usually in February, it is almost impossible to do that without lots of hussle. Going to Asia would be possible in the 4. term (winter 2012) and after that I could write my master thesis right there (assumed that I find a cooperating professor). This would mean studying longer for a couple of months, but I don't mind that if I can study almost a year abroad!

Let's take a look at the exchange programs they have available. There are 160 partner unis worldwide, including unis like Stanford. Asia seems to be a strength of the TUM, look at their Asia partner unis

China: 7 unis
Indonesia: 1 uni
Korea: 3 unis
Philippines: 1
Singapore: 2
Taiwan: 2
Thailand: 3
Malaysia: 1

Of course it needs to be checked if it makes sense to study there, because there should be similar courses available. The exam regulations say that you can earn up to 13 credits each semester abroad even if the modules attended are not the same but have something to do with the program content and purpose. So in order to make to full 30 credits you would need to find a uni that offers at least 17 credits in the same courses you would have back in Munich.

Unfortunately, Double Degrees exist only in the Informatics program, not in IS.

Environment

City

Munich is not as snobby as ppl often used to tell me. At the weekend we were at some nice clubs and pubs, of course expensive, but very worth it. The inner city has nice spots like the Marienplatz, you can have barbecue at the Isar river, you have all these mountains right near the city. So main advantages for me:

- large city, endless opportunities to go out and meet ppl, loads of cultural activities, concerts, etc.
- many companies at the place
- nice atmosphere

There are also some disadvantages:

- campus in Garching is located 30 minutes away. This is my main point. All students I asked had this point actually. They like the campus in Garching, but it's simply nothing out there. So going to uni is merely going to work. This may be a little frustrating.
- There is no student ticket, which means that you have to spend 100 euro extra just for transport
- The city is insanely expensive: you are going to pay more than 900 euro a month, including almost 400 euro for the rent and those 100 for transport.

Non-Uni

As to expect in such a city and uni (there is also the other uni, LMU): Plenty of opportunities.Here I'm referring to this promotional video for the program.

Ultimately,....

Without a doubt a great university with an excellent reputation. Another advantage are the opportunities to go abroad and to study (even though expensively) in a really busy and nice city. On the other hand, the program is a little bit unflexible and not all courses that are offered are the ones I would choose.