We are delighted to welcome you to FAU. New beginnings are always a challenge – or at least a lot of work. In order to make the transition a little easier and help you settle in, we have compiled some information to help you make the most of your time at FAU. This overview can only give you initial guidance, but the linked resources should allow you to find other answers or identify where to go for further help.
Try not to tackle everything at once. Otherwise, as FAU is a large university that offers the entire spectrum of academic disciplines, trying to figure out how FAU works could appear rather overwhelming. As a suggestion, this section will lead you through three areas or phases.
Human Resources has drawn up a comprehensive guide for starting out at FAU. Although it is intended for administrative staff, it is an extremely valuable resource that is worth bookmarking and having a look through.
If you have never lived in Germany before, we would recommend registering with the Welcome Center. There you will find help with settling in to the region and with bureaucratic matters.
Getting off to a good start at work
Your main priority in your first few days at FAU should be to ensure that you have everything you need for starting your new position. This includes completing all necessary university and external admin and becoming familiar with your new working environment.
Get to know your department and find out what exactly your position involves
As a first step, you should get to know your direct colleagues and your managers and become familiar with your new working environment. You should check with your manager and/or their secretary’s office if they have not yet given you details of where to go and whom to meet on the first day.
Workplace
Make sure that you have everything you need for your work. This includes the following:
- What are your tasks and who is responsible for you?
- Have you been allocated an office?
- Can you access all facilities or equipment you need for your research (the details will of course vary greatly depending on your discipline)?
Procedures
Ask questions about the internal procedures at your organizational unit:
- Does your team have regular team meetings or are there other meetings you are expected to attend?
- Whom should you contact if you have any questions about organizational or administrative matters at your place of work?
- If German is not your native language: Who can help you in the case of language difficulties?
Teaching
If your contract includes a teaching obligation, you must ensure that you know what is expected of you and how to meet your obligations.
- Begin to draw up a list of all online resources and portals that you may need for your job. This may include campo, StudOn or the video portal (see below).
- Which courses should you teach and from when?
- How do these fit into the overall syllabus for your faculty or the degree programs your teaching unit is incorporated into?
- Can you build on other (preparatory) work – either your own or from colleagues?
The most important portals at FAU
Some of the most important web portals at FAU that you may need for your work:
The identity management portal “IdM” not only offers an overview of important personal information that University has (and needs) about you, but also a number of self-service functions such as setting up multi-factor authentication, or configuring FAUdir and your email. If you ever need to apply for access to a service or portal, it is highly probable that you will be able to start the process from IdM.
If you have to find out someone’s name, position or telephone number, the University’s directory FAUdir is the place to check. Check that your own information is also correct! You can amend the displayed information in the IdM portal.
Campo is used for a number of different functions, for instance for managing courses, examinations and grades and for booking rooms. You may have to use it if you are responsible for planning and organizing an examination, if you have to enter grades or if you have to manage teaching modules for your organizational unit. If you do need to use campo, refer to general FAQs and resources for campo and the FAQs for examiners.
StudOn is the e-learning platform you will use to help you with your teaching. Resources are available to help you get started with StudOn, as well as StudOn FAQs
CRIS, the Current Research Information System, is FAU’s main system for presenting and documenting the publications and projects you are involved in.
The video portal is a video hosting portal you can use to host recordings of your lectures or seminars, as a repository for general teaching and instruction videos, or as a platform for livestreaming your courses.
Services offered at FAU for early career researchers
FAU offers a number of services that can help you be successful and prepare for your future career. This includes advice on research data management, support in finding funding, services tailored specifically to early career researchers, and science communication.
The Research section on the FAU website provides details of all the services on offer. We recommend consulting it regularly, and you might consider bookmarking it.
Graduate Center and Early Career Support
Graduate Center and Early Career Support is the central point of contact for the majority of support services the University offers researchers in the early stages of their academic career. It offers a number of services that help you make the most of your postdoctoral phase. The information and services it offers include:
- An overview of the postdoctoral phase
- Tips for planning a stay abroad
- A comprehensive seminar program
- Individual coaching sessions The career program FAUnext
- Postdoc Day – an annual event for all postdoctoral researchers at FAU
- A list of networking programs and events
Research support at faculty level
If you would like discipline-specific advice on your research, on funding or on similar topics, please contact the relevant research coordinators at your faculty:
Dr. Robert Fischer
Research associates
Contact
Dr. Cordula Glass
Research associates
Contact
For the School of Business, Economics and Society:
Dr. Dennis Kirchberg
Research associates
Contact
Dr. rer. nat. Anja Goldmann
Staff
Contact
Patrik Stör
Resarch and Internationalisation
Contact
Points of contact at the Faculty of Engineering (single sign-on required)
Other points of contact
FAU’s general research funding portal lists a number of further resources. Especially if you already know which funding organization you would like to apply to, the relevant coordinators can help give you specific advice.
Career planning
It is crucial that you use the beginning of your postdoctoral phase to plan the rest of your career. You must find out which additional skills you require in order to be successful within or outside academia, depending on where you intend to go next. Make a point of becoming familiar with the Fixed-Term Research Contracts Act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz) and the various career paths within Germany (and abroad!). Make sure to have a plan B up your sleeve if you intend to stay in academia. Further information is available on the Graduate Center’s website.
Social aspects
Saying that there is more to life than work may be a cliché, and yet it has a lot of truth to it. Especially if you have come to FAU by yourself, without friends or family, you shouldn’t underestimate the possibility that you may feel homesick or lonely. If there is a language barrier, making connections and becoming socially integrated is definitely easier said than done.
The following is a non-exhaustive collection of suggestions that should help you to think about how you can mitigate or preferably avoid this problem altogether.
- Obvious, but effective: Make contacts with like-minded people in a similar situation.
- Join a networking group. For example, the Graduate Center offers a monthly postdoc meetup, a casual event to help you make some first contacts.
- Thanks to the university and numerous international companies based in the region, the Erlangen-Nuremberg Metropolitan Region is home to a number of expats, who you can reach out to via the social network of your choice. Many of them meet regularly in groups or pursue shared hobbies together. This is particularly interesting if you are looking to make contacts outside of your immediate academic surroundings or FAU.
- There are also special platforms for leisure activities such as Meetup, where you can meet people with similar interests.
- If you live by yourself, you may consider moving into a shared apartment. Even if you associate shared apartments with hard-up student life, you shouldn’t rush to reject the social benefits of living with others, even if it is a long time since you were a student. It can prove to be extremely helpful to live with someone who already has experience of life in Germany.