Pre-study internship
All students must provide evidence of having completed a 6-week pre-study internship (without interruption). This must generally be completed either before the start of the degree programme or during the lecture-free times, up to the start of the 5th semester. The aim is to gain an understanding of the working environment on building sites and in workshops within the main construction sector or the steel and metal construction industry, and to get to know the staff employed there.
The pre-study internship is intended to be linked to the degree programme by enabling students to familiarise themselves with:
- Building materials and their workability and processability
- Construction equipment, construction machinery and construction methods
- Manufacturing and joining processes, assembly processes
- Working conditions (physical work, social environment)
- potential hazards in the workplace (accident prevention)
- functional relationships between those involved in the construction process
Construction site work
- in occupational fields within the main construction sector:
- Assisting the team with formwork, reinforcement, concreting and bricklaying;
- Assistance within the group in the fields of earthworks and foundation engineering, sewer construction, hydraulic engineering, transport infrastructure, masonry, steel and timber construction, precast construction, building construction and structural maintenance
- in the steel and metal construction sector:
- Assisting the group with sawing, shearing, flame cutting, marking out, bending, drilling, turning, milling, screwing, welding, straightening, preserving and assembly
- Completion of a vocational training programme in a construction or metalworking trade counts as equivalent to the pre-study internship.
- Training as a draughtsman and completion of the FOS Technik qualification are not normally recognised as a pre-study internship.
- Work placements on building sites with electrical contractors and companies specialising in heating and air-conditioning do not receive academic credit transfer for the purposes of a civil engineering degree.