Details

• Germany
• MAECO-22
• Graduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months

1. Preparation

I personally think spending a semester in Frankfurt as part of an exchange programme is a great opportunity. Of course, it is not such a great difference from Austria, but still I would recommend it. Frankfurt is in the heart of Europe, so it is also a great destination if you want to travel around. At the same time reaching Frankfurt it is not so expensive; you have different means of transportation you can choose from, which makes it easier to not spend much on transportation.

2. Accommodation

Finding an accommodation in Frankfurt can be very tricky. I was personally very lucky because I got a place in a student residence and I paid just €285 per month. Of course the dorm was quite old and I had to share the bathroom and the kitchen with all the floor, but for 6 months was more than fine. To get a spot in a student residence you have to be very quick in applying for it. For example, for the winter semester the application for a student dorm starts in the middle of May (the university will send you an email communicating you that the application process is open) and the faster you are in applying, the higher the chance you will get a spot. At the same time, many friends of mine they didn’t got a place in dorm and they had to find a place in a wg, which was way more expensive and there were lots of scams. So I would highly recommend to live in a student dorm and just adapt to it for six months. Furthermore, most of the dorms are located quite close to the university, mine for example was 20 minutes walk to uni. Otherwise, it is still a big city, so the public transportation work quite well (of course not as good as Vienna :) ). And regarding the safety, I have to say that it is not as dangerous as many people use to say. Before going to Frankfurt I was a little bit worried because it doesn’t have a great reputation in terms of safety, but at the end of these 6 months I have to admit that I never felt in danger while I was there. Of course for example in the district of the central station, you have to be a little bit more careful, but I would say as in all others big cities around the world.

3. Academic life at host university

The campus is amazing, I would say almost as good as WU. There are many libraries and there are many Mensa you can choose from and they are very cheap (between €2 and €5). Regarding the teaching style, I prefer the one at WU with many assignments/midterms/ group projects during the semester. At Goethe Universität Frankfurt most of the classes have just a final exam and your grade fully depend on that, which I find it personally bad. Nevertheless, the quality of teaching is very very high. Especially, if you want to gain more knowledge in finance, it is the best place for doing that. Among the courses I took I can definitely recommend Capital Markets and Asset Pricing by Prof. Kraft, International Financial Architecture by Prof. Kern and Topics on Financial Regulation/ Systemic Risk by Prof. Pelizzon. I would highly recommend also the seminar in Advanced Applied Data Science by Prof. Bauer, where in groups you have to develop a machine learning model based on the data that a company will provide you and at the end of the course you are going to present your results in front of the managers of that company. I know the company that provide the data, changes every year. In my case we got the data from DWS and we went to present our model at their headquarters. Amazing experience and a great opportunity for networking.

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transportation works well overall, although it obviously doesn’t measure up to Vienna’s. As for social life, the ESN community in Frankfurt is very active, so there are plenty of activities and events organized every week, and plenty of opportunities to meet new people. You certainly won’t feel lonely. In addition, the university has a sports center, so for just 20 euros you can play any sport.

6. Testimonial

It was a really good experience I will remember for the rest of my life. I got to meet new people and travel around between France, Germany and the Netherlands. It was a really carefree semester where I met lots of new people and had the chance to travel. If you get the chance, go on Erasmus. You won’t regret it.