During your Stay

During an individual appointment, we would love to get to know you personally and answer your questions regarding your stay at TH Köln. Normally, we will ask you to sign an agreement for your guest stay at the TH after you arrive. This agreement regulates all rights and obligations associated with your stay. We will provide you with a welcome package (including a guest identification card, email address and computer login) with many useful tips and information to make it easier for you (and your family) to get used to the new environment. We are also glad to give you an initial orientation on site at our campus and to explain the formalities that you must take care of after your arrival in Germany.

1) Formalities after Arrival

There are three important formalities to take care of in the initial weeks after your arrival in Germany:

• Registering your German residence
• Opening a German bank account
• Applying for a residence permit at the immigration office (only relevant for non-EU citizens staying longer than 90 days)

2) Formalities at TH Köln

• Sign the guest scholar agreement
• Activate guest identification card, campusID and email address

We would like to sign an agreement with you that covers the duration of your stay and regulates all legal conditions (permission, legal relationships, confidentiality, data protection, results, publications, termination) of your stay. If you would like to view the agreement, we would be glad to send it to you in advance by email.

In addition to a lot of important information, your welcome package contains a guest identification card, an email address and a login that is your campusID and serves as your login for various systems at the TH. In the beginning, you have to activate your campusID and your email address.

3) Take a placement test / language course registration

If you arrive when classes start and are interested in participating in a German course during the semester, you normally have to take a placement test first (exception: you have no previous knowledge of German). Afterwards, you can register for a language course that corresponds to your level of German. The Language Learning Center offers more information on German courses.

4) Formalities if you bring along your children

You have to register your children with you in your municipality of residence.

School allocation and registration: After registering your residence, the municipality will send you information about registering your children for school. First, you have to make an appointment with the Communal Integration Center. During an advisory appointment, the Communal Integration Center will determine with you and your children which school and which grade would be best for your children. The Communal Integration Center has specifically trained personnel who speak English and other foreign languages. Afterwards, a school doctor from the health department will examine your children. About two weeks later, the education authority will usually allocate your children to a school that is close to your place of residence. If your children do not have any knowledge of German, they will initially be placed in a preparatory class for new immigrants with intensive German-language instruction. As soon as the children have a sufficient knowledge of German, they can attend regular classes.

You usually need to bring the following documents to your advisory appointment:

• Proof of your address in Cologne
• Your identification documents
• Your child's/ children's identification documents
• Your child's/ children's report cards from your home country

Registering for and adjusting to the childcare facility or daycare workers: For younger children who will be cared for in a childcare facility or by a daycare worker, the facility or daycare worker will provide you with information on registering and adjusting to the care environment.

Please note that at the time care begins in a group facility you must have written proof of a measles immunization for your children (Measles Protection Act).

Please bear in mind that it is normal for adjusting to take place in the first one to three weeks where a parent accompanies their children every day in the institution until they can be alone in the institution after a few weeks. This gives you and the children the opportunity to get to know the institution and your contact persons well and to ensure that your children feel comfortable at the institution.

5) Public transportation (local public transportation)

TH Köln is easily accessible by public transportation (local public transportation). We recommend that you travel to the TH using local public transportation since parking is very limited. All locations are close to a subway stop or a train station. It is often worth buying a monthly pass if you normally come to the TH using local public transportation.

We hope that you have had a good start to your stay at TH Köln. You will be part of TH Köln for the coming weeks and months. The TH has a variety of different information and programs to help you during your stay.

Below you can find information about TH Köln and its programs as well as some useful information for your time in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

Your stay will soon be over? We hope that you had a pleasant, successful time at TH Köln. Feel free to stop by our office again so that we can take care of any unanswered questions before your departure and personally say goodbye.

The following explains the formalities that you should take care of before your departure. You can also download this information as a checklist in the info box to the right.

At TH Köln

• Inform your host in the faculty as well as the International Scholar Services about your planned departure date
• Return all media that you borrowed from the library
• Spend any remaining credit on your MultiCa. You can also have the money paid out in the KSTW cafeteria
• Return your key or transponder to your institute or to the responsible facility management service
• Return your MultiCa to the International Scholar Services

At your place of residence

• Cancel your contract for your apartment, health insurance, mobile phone contracts, membership at the gym, KVB tickets, etc. in good time since notice periods are sometimes 3 months
• Make an appointment with your landlord for returning your apartment and key, and take care of your deposit refund
• Deregister your place of residence with the municipality
• Deregister television and radio license fees (only with deregistration documentation from the municipality)
• Make arrangements with your bank for closing your bank account

How was your stay at TH Köln? – your feedback

We are very interested to know how you liked your stay at the TH. Please send your feedback to international-scholars@th-koeln.de so that we can improve our services for guest scholars.

Goodbye

Departure is often stressful, and there is a lot to take care of in a short amount of time, just like at the beginning of a stay abroad. We understand if you do not have time to say goodbye in person. So, we would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank you for visiting the TH, we wish your all the best and hope to see you again in Cologne.