Once again more first-year students at BTU

After around 300 enrolments for the summer semester of 2023, there will be around 1,700 for the current winter semester. BTU is once again proving to be particularly attractive for international prospective students. The proportion of first-year students from abroad is 47 percent.

Bachelor's degree courses such as Social Work, with over 100 new enrolments, and Teaching Degree for Primary Education, with over 60 students in the first year, as well as Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence are proving very popular. The diversity and attractiveness of the Bachelor's degree programs is also reflected in the very good enrolment figures in Business Administration and in the Environmental and Resource Management study programme.
The engineering study programmes in the dual profile are developing extremely successfully. For the first time this year, more than 100 students were enrolled on dual study programmes. The BTU's Bachelor's degree programs are particularly popular in the extended university region: around 75 percent of new students come from Brandenburg, Berlin and Saxony.

In the Master's area , BTU scores points with its international profile , as it plays a leading role in Germany in international study programs and attracts students from all over the world to Cottbus and Senftenberg. With its successful study programs, the university generates young talent for science and transfer in the areas of its profile lines. The study programmes Artificial Intelligence, Environmental and Resource Management, Power Engineering, World Heritage Studies and Heritage Conservation and Site Management are particularly successful. More than half of the students on international Master's study programs come from abroad.

Prof. Dr. Peer Schmidt, Vice-President for Academic Affairs at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, emphasizes: "The strong increase in the number of applications and the increase in first-year students are the result of intensive efforts in many areas to make studying at our university even more attractive. Newly established study programmes deal with current social issues, established ones are continuously developed, processes are optimized and students receive comprehensive supervision. Very good ratings for our study programmes, such as in the renowned CHE Master's ranking published at the end of November, also attract increased attention beyond the region. It is particularly pleasing that our still young study programs in the field of artificial intelligence and the new teacher training program are so well received and that, not least due to the positive development in the area of co-op programmes, the traditional engineering study programmes are also gaining even more momentum. At a recent information event on co-op programs, 120 young people learned about the possibility of starting such a course next year."

Of the current 6,600 BTU students, around 5,600 are studying in Cottbus and around 1,000 at Campus Senftenberg. The decline in the total number of students compared to 6,800 students in the previous year, despite an increase in the number of first-year students, is due in particular to the return to shorter periods of study - due to the expiry of the pandemic regulations on extending the period of study. In addition, at BTU, as at many other universities in Germany, larger cohorts who were enrolled before the pandemic are now completing their studies.

Students from over 120 countries are enrolled at BTU, with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh being the most strongly represented. Overall, around 44 percent of students come from abroad.
Women make up 43 percent of the total number of students at BTU.

The BTU's range of study programs currently includes 30 Bachelor's degree programs, 32 Master's degree programs and three doctoral studies / Ph.D. programs.