Exams in BA History

First of all, it is important to distinguish between registering for an exam and registering for a course. If you register for a COURSE in ZEuS, you are NOT AUTOMATICALLY registered for an EXAM.
 

REGISTRATION DEADLINES FOR EXAMS (WRITTEN EXAMS, COURSEWORK, EXAMS)

If you wish to obtain credits in a course, it is compulsory to register for the exam during the registration period. The only exception  is the compulsory internship. For the recognition of the compulsory internship you must follow and complete the mandatory reporting procedure.

The exam registration takes place within the following deadlines:
Summer semester: 01 May - 15 June
Winter semester: 01 December - 15 January
An exam deregistration via ZEuS is only possible within this period.

EXAM REGISTRATION

A late registration via the Examination Office (Heike Reinhuber) is only possible twice during your studies and is documented in ZEuS.

Before you start the registration procedure via the study planner with module plan in your ZEuS account, please check beforehand about the correct "exam number" (HIS-XXXX), which you will find for the respective course in the table with the heading "Prüfungsleistung / Studienleistung", as the same course often offers several possibilities to acquire different amounts of ECTS and each possibility has a different exam number.

The ZEuS team provides several useful videos to help you with the exam registration process. If you have any technical questions, e.g. missing TANs, please contact the Student Service Center (SSZ). If you have any questions (e.g. because you are a student of another subject or cannot register for other reasons), please contact the Examination Office directly. Please ALWAYS write your matriculation number and the HIS-exam number in your email, otherwise your request cannot be processed.

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EXAMINATION DUE TO ILLNESS

If you are ill on the day of the exam, you do not have to take it.

You must notify the Examination Office (Heike Reinhuber) of your illness BEFORE the exam by e-mail and provide a medical certificate.
Only use this form (see PDF "Withdrawal from exams and extension of theses due to illness (medical certificate)") and send it in advance as a scan by e-mail AND then by post to the Examination Office:
University of Konstanz
Department of History and Sociology
PO Box 13
Examination Office, Heike Reinhuber
D-78457 Konstanz.

The certificate must be issued at the latest on the day of the exam (in the case of longer illnesses also before the day of the examination) and must be valid for the day of the exam. Certificates or others forms issued later cannot be accepted.
 

WITHDRAWAL FROM EXAMS DUE TO OTHER REASONS

Withdrawal due to certain reasons can be approved in some exceptional cases, especially if students are not directly responsible for their inability to attend the exam. Admissible reasons include studying abroad or a sudden death within the family. If such a case arises, please contact the Examinations Office, Heike Reinhuber, explain your reasons for being unable to attend and enclose the necessary evidence.
 

UNEXCUSED ABSENCE

Unexcused absences from exams lead to the entry NE=not appeared in ZEuS and thus to failure of the exam. If there is a re-examination, you will be automatically registered for it.
 

RETAKE EXAMS AND FAILING

According to the general examination regulations for humanities degree programmes, an exam can be repeated once. This must happen at the earliest possible date. If you withdraw from an exam due to illness or if you do not pass the exam, you will automatically be registered by the Examination Office for the next available exam date.
Should you also be ill for the retake exam or should you fail it and another attempt be possible, please register on your own for the retake exam at the next available date. Please note: there is no automatic registration for exams across semesters.

If you also fail the retake exam, you must first submit a request for recognition as a hardship case to the StPA before the possibility of taking a further exam can be reactivated. The request for recognition as a hardship case must be submitted no later than two months after the announcement of the exam result. If a request for recognition as a hardship case is not submitted, the exam entitlement expires. The students concerned are usually contacted, but each student is obliged to contact the student advisor in any case.

If the request for recognition as a hardship case is granted, a final retake of the exam is possible. If the retake is not passed again, you are definitively not able to complete the history degree programme as a major or minor subject and cannot continue studying history in Germany, as you lose your entitlement to the exam.
The option of requesting a request for recognition as a hardship case can be only used twice within a degree programme.

If the examination is compulsory for the orientation examination, the examination can only be repeated once, so in this case there is no longer any possibility of submitting a hardship application: "A second repetition of examinations to be taken as part of the orientation examination is not possible." (General Examination Regulations §25 (3)).

ORIENTATION EXAMINATION

This must be taken by the beginning of the 3rd semester as part of the course guidance. As a study-related examination, you must present this evidence:

Applies to PO 2022:
- All required language skills
- Introductory lectures "Alte Geschichte und Mittelalter" and "Neuzeit"
- Course "Geschichte als Wissenschaft"
- Source exercise
- from WS 24/25 introductory tutorial (if you started your study programme before WS 24/25, please contact your student advisory service)

Applies to PO 2015:
- All required language skills
- Introductory lecture
- One proseminar

If you need to make up the required language skills, you must apply for an extension of the deadline by the end of the second semester at the latest. This is done by presenting your Abitur certificate to the student advisory service. For each missing language proficiency, two semesters can be added to the standard period of study and the deadline for the orientation exam is extended accordingly. 

REGISTRATION PROCESS FOR THE BA FINAL ECAMINATION IN HISTORY 

For each semester there is a registration date for the written and oral final examination for the BA History!

• for the winter semester: 15 – 30 October
• for the summer semester: 02 – 15 May

If the first day of registration is a Saturday or Sunday, the registration period is automatically extended by that period, as you cannot register with the Central Examinations Office on Saturdays or Sundays. There are preclusive time-limits.

Dates for compiling your Bachelor's thesis: For all registered students the common starting point of the 6-week period for writing the BA thesis and thus the admission by the Central Examinations Office is:

• for the winter semester: either 15 November or 01 February
• for the summer semester: either 01 June or 01 August

The students can select one of the starting dates.
For the period starting on 15th November the deadline is automatically extended by the period authorised by the Vice Rector due to the Christmas closure (the Central Examinations Office takes this into consideration already at admission).

YOU REGISTER AS FOLLOWS:

1. You collect your registration documents at the Central Examination Office, Karolin Wurster (room C401).
2. You look for an examiner (cf. authorised examiner) who will supervise your thesis. You agree upon the topic of your thesis with the examiner.
3. You can officially register for the written and oral final examination with Karolin Wurster. You can register either 02– 16 May or 15 – 31 October. You can simultaneously register for the written and oral examination.
4. Each semester there are two starting dates for compiling your Bachelor's thesis. For the winter semester: 15 November and 1 February. For the summer semester: 1 June and 1 August.
5. The allowed writing time is six weeks. If you start your thesis on 15 November, the deadline is automatically extended by the period of the Christmas closure
6. Prerequisites for registration for the written examination are: presence of all your assessment results of the basic modules as well as one assessment result of an advanced module, the successfully completed internship and the examiner's signature.
7. In their consultation hour the departmental student advisory service will check whether all prerequisites are met so you can register for the written or oral examination.
8. The oral examination in your major can only take place if you have completed the study-related programmes, the assessments of your major and the additional work-related qualifications required by your study programme according to attachment D and you have handed in your written thesis. You set the date for your oral examination together with your examiner. The examinees hand the completed form "Assessment overview for the admission to the oral examination within the undergraduate (BA) study programme History" over to their departmental student advisor after registering for their last study-related examination(after 15 January for the winter semester and after 15 June for the summer semester). 
9. In case some examination results/assessments still are missing upon registering for the oral examination, you can hand them in until 10 days before the oral examination.

Current information and forms are provided on the page of the Central Examination Office (ZPA). 

Here you will find information on the following topics, among others: 

- Registration for the final examination
- General regulations for submitting final examinations
- Signets of the University of Konstanz
- Withdrawing from examinations and extending final examinations
- Certification of examination documents
- Financial support for final theses

An overview of the contact persons at the ZPA, their responsibilities and office hours can be found here.

Current list of examiners in History.