Geosciences Ruhr-Universität Bochum

With more than 50 modules and over 100 individual courses, our MSc programme offers a diverse and flexible portfolio that allows you to shape your studies according to your personal interests, strengths, and career ambitions. This wide selection ensures that you can build a truly individualised academic path while gaining both depth and breadth in geosciences.

Within the MSc Geoscience programme, we offer several overarching research directions, each encompassing a range of specialised fields that you can focus on:

1. Geophysics: including Experimental Geophysics, Earthquake Processes, and Tectonic Geodesy
2. Applied Geosciences: including Engineering Geology and Rock Mechanics, as well as Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology
3. Earth Surface Processes: including Geomorphology and Geohazards, Sedimentology and Isotope Geochemistry, and Sedimentary Geochemistry
4. Geodynamics, Geomaterials, and High-Temperature Processes: including Tectonics and Resources, Structural Geology, Petrology, High-Temperature Geochemistry, and Crystallography
5. Applied Geothermics: a binational MSc track offered in collaboration with our partner university, UNSJ (Argentina)

This structure enables you to specialise in a focused area while maintaining interdisciplinary connections across the geosciences.

At the start of your studies, you will work closely with a prospective thesis adviser to design a personalised study plan tailored to your interests, specialisation, and envisioned Master’s thesis project.

During your first year, you will build a strong foundation of advanced knowledge across multiple geoscience disciplines through a dynamic mix of lectures, hands-on exercises, seminars, introductions to various programming languages, and targeted fieldwork. In your third semester, you will refine your academic focus by selecting further electives and shaping a research- or professional-oriented study path — often including laboratory work and training in our state-of-the-art analytical facilities.

Your individualised MSc thesis project, developed in close collaboration with your adviser, will form the centrepiece of your fourth semester.

• Bachelor's degree in Geosciences with 180 credit points (CP) or a comparable (equivalent) programme.
• Documented 20 CP overall in mathematics, chemistry, and physics
• Applicants who have not completed their degree or Bachelor's degree at an English-speaking institution or whose native language is not English must have English language proficiency at level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (see details below).

Students have to pay a social contribution fee of approx. 380 EUR per semester, including a semester ticket covering public transport in Germany (https://studium.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/re-registration-and-social-contribution).

Minimum of 950 EUR per month to cover personal and living expenses in Germany

The Career Service for International Students was established to support international students as they move from their studies into the German job market.

• Events & Workshops: From networking events to web seminars, learn the best tips from career experts and get to know start-ups from the region.
• Digital Career Guide: The Moodle course “Career Service for International Students” prepares you for starting a job in Germany.
• FIT4Job — Mentoring for Internationals: RUB alumni share their professional expertise and good practices with you one-on-one.
• Counselling services: Identify your talents and career goals in a personal counselling session. Our RUB Career Service team provides support in preparing application documents and interviews.

In the city of Bochum, you can find different types of accommodation. On average, students in Bochum pay approximately 400 to 800 EUR per month for a single apartment, which is below the average rent in Germany. A room in a shared apartment is usually less expensive.

About 5,000 students in Bochum live in multiple student halls close to the campus, which are run by the Akademisches Förderungswerk (AKAFÖ). In the halls, each student has a single room and shares a kitchen and bathroom with other students, rents an apartment with a private bathroom and kitchen, or shares an apartment with one or several flatmates. 

More information on the student halls can be found at https://studium.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/de/wohnen.

In addition, private and church-affiliated student halls accommodate up to 1,000 students: http://www.stuwo.de/wohnheim-region/bochum/.