Academic Advising

 

The RWTH Aachen Faculty of Medicine has one or more full-time class cohort or course of study coordinators for every course of study and in part, for each study component. This set up was introduced at the beginning of the Aachen medicine model course of study. Students are thus intensively supervised in our courses of study. There are class cohort coordinators for each of the six years of the model course of study and exam coordinators. Futhermore, teachers, such as the course instructors, are also contact persons for students.

Coordinators' responsibilities include advising and mentoring students, creating course schedules, and organizing the academic year in collaboration with teachers and course instructors. A new job description emerged in the Dean of Studies Office with the introduction of the class cohort coordinators. Through regular group and mentoring discussions with class cohort coordinators, students are given the opportunity to express problems through their studies, which contributes to the continuous improvement of the organization of the program layout and the quality of teaching. Coordinators have proven to be very important to students according to regular results from the evaluations.

Aside from these individuals, additional employees from the Dean of Studies Office enable as smooth as studies as possible and ensure quality in teaching.

 

... at RWTH Aachen

RWTH Aachen extracted the need for a mentoring system in its concept "Students at the Focus of Excellence." The funds provided for this purpose were used to design such a system and adapt it to faculties' framework conditions with their help. Fungs from the Bund-Länder Program were granted for the implementation of a mentoring system in the faculty for better study conditions and more quality in teaching (third pillar of the Hochschulpakt). RWTH Aachen's primary goal is to implement a comprehensive mentoring system to support and advising students, who have achieved less than two-thirds of credit points and to promote particularly talented students (10 best percent rule).