Visiting students: Come on in!

The department of English and American Studies specializes in the investigation of the English language and the literature(s) and culture(s) of English-speaking countries. Our courses aim to provide students with the professional "tools" of linguistics and literary studies to gain more profound insights into the realm of English and its scientific investigation.

An overview of the courses that we offer regularly can be found herepdf, 96 kb · de (B.A. courses) and herepdf, 103 kb · de (M.A. courses).

If you study "English", "American Studies", "Linguistics", "Literary Studies", "Translation Studies", "Modern Languages", or a similar subject at your home university, you can feel invited to submit an application for visiting student status at our department.

If, however, you study something rather different but are nevertheless interested in improving your English by means of a practical English class (e.g. conversation, essay writing, listening comprehension, etc.), you will not be able to pursue this at our department. For such general proficiency classes, we would like to redirect you kindly to our university's Language Centre.

Studying a language involves using it actively whenever possible. For this reason, the classic lectures in which students simply listen and take notes are relatively rare at our department. Most of our classes are seminars: Students and their instructors meet once (or occasionally twice) a week, usually for 90 minutes, to jointly work on texts and topics that every student has to prepare independently before the class meeting. Therefore, seminars require your active participation in discussions: local and international students alike are supposed to make contributions to each session, develop their own ideas and interpretations, give presentations in class, and assess each other critically. It goes without saying that this requires a sound oral and written proficiency in English.

Against this background, our exams tend to be analytical and based on the principle of application: Written exams do not simply ask the students to reproduce content learned by heart, but rather to transfer their knowledge to new examples, texts, and problem sets. In other words, insights from a lecture or a seminar always need to be applied. What is more, many seminars do not, in fact, finish with an exam but with a term paper. In contrast to the so-called "course essays" in some of the students' home countries, these are not 2-3 page expositions but research papers of about 10-15 pages. Students need to demonstrate their ability to work on a specific topic (e.g. a literary text or a linguistic phenomenon) independently and from a scientific point of view. This requires you to bring certain foundational scientific skills (such as working with secondary literature and writing in an academically appropriate way).

The application process starts with your home university mailing your application documents to the International Office de of the University of Jena (FSU). Our International Office will assist you in all organizational matters before, during, and at the end of your stay.

If you state in your application that you would like to take courses in English and American Studies in Jena, our International Office will email you a PDF with further steps to be taken. Specifically, in order to become a visiting student at our department, you will need to ...

• complete a language proficiency test (free of charge) that we administer online
• send us a list of your previous courses in English and American Studies via email
• send us a list of the courses you would like to take at our department. You can get some prior orientation about our course offer here (B.A. coursespdf, 96 kb · de, M.A. coursespdf, 103 kb · de). Please note that B.A. students cannot take any M.A. classes, while M.A. students need to check with their home university if they can obtain credit points should they want to take B.A. classes.

Importantly, it is only after reviewing these documents and test results that we decide on whether you can take classes at our department and whether these can be the courses you originally intended. It is not unsual for the initial course choice to be amended.

In sum, sending out your application documents does not mean that you are automatically granted visiting student status for English and American Studies! This is why you need to apply as early as possible and to take all of the above steps as early and as quickly as you can!

General information on your application and on the organization of your stay is provided by our International Office by clicking here de.

Our department also has an Erasmus coordinator for English Studies (Dr. John Thomson). He is responsible for all academic issues relating to your application, especially your admission to English and American Studies and your selection of courses at our department. You can reach out to him by email: international.iaa@uni-jena.de.

Coming soon