HAW Hamburg Study Abroad

Finding accommodation in Hamburg is tough. We are offering an online information session where we share tips and answer questions for new international students coming to Hamburg. When: 26.08. 2:30 - 3:30 pm CET. Please register here: https://bit.ly/4xTszmg

Throwback Thursday! As we count down to the welcome weeks in September with our new exchange students, we thought we'd take a little journey down memory lane and look at photos from 10 years ago. 🎉Can you believe it? Lots of faces we recognise. Happy memories! Time for a reunion? 🙂

HAW Hamburg has 1863 international students. 1482 of them are undergraduate students. The Top 10 degree programmes with the most international students are: 1. Information Engineering; 2. Mechanical Engineering; 3. Biotechnology; 4. Biomedical Engineering; 5. International Business; 6. Applied Computer Science; 7. Mechanical Engineering & Production Management; 8. Computer Science for technical systems; 9. Electrical Engineering and 10. Aeronautical Engineering.

Information Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and International Business are taught in English. The others are taught in German. We are looking forward to welcoming our new international students soon.

Pentiment at the Art & Media Campus Hamburg. The 36th International Summer Academy for Art & Design is at HAW Hamburg from 9. -23. August.

Every summer, professional artists and designers, talented self-taught individuals, and art and design students come together here for two weeks. Regardless of age, education, or background, participants engage in an intensive exchange on an equal footing. They are guided by renowned lecturers from Germany and abroad.

We popped in for a quick look in the atelier with Anna Steinert and her course in processual painting. 'Instead of focusing on a single image, we will be working parallel on several formats, switching between them, letting ourselves be guided by transitions, pauses, and spaces in between. This creates a natural rhythm of activity, a back-and-forth between intuition, observation, and reflection.' 🎨

More information: www.pentiment.de

Ke, or Kyla as she prefers to be called, is an international master’s student from China. She has just completed her first semester in “Sound/Vision” at HAW Hamburg and is building on knowledge that she gained as an undergraduate student during an exchange year in Hamburg in 2023/24.

As an exchange student Kyla took the film project classes “Short Cut”, “Media Production” and “Camera Acting” as well as “Innovative Storytelling”, “Design” and “Game Design”. Her goal was to build on her communication degree at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST). ‘While my bachelor’s programme gave me a theoretical foundation, we did not have media labs in Shanghai. In Hamburg I had access to well-equipped media labs and opportunities for hands-on media production, which I found very exciting. My happiest memory from that year was making films in the Production Lab, where we developed projects from a concept into sets and shooting, and finally a complete audiovisual work.’

After completing her bachelor’s degree at USST, Kyla returned to Hamburg to pursue her master’s degree. Her focus is on sound and she describes her first semester as both intensive and rewarding, with theory classes and a team project. Weekly seminars allow students to discuss their ideas and get support from their professors: ‘I have met lots of cool people here. We spend a lot of time brainstorming and working together in the labs but also discovering Hamburg. An additional highlight were workshops with professors from CSU Long Beach, bringing together different approaches and a Hollywood-style perspective on media production.’

‘The programme is a great fit for me because I enjoy creating media projects. It offers lots of opportunities to independently develop projects in the Sound Lab, Video Lab, Light Lab, and Production Lab. Professors also organize workshops based on students’ interests and provide opportunities to connect with professionals in the industry. Here, you have a lot of creative freedom: you can work on immersive installations, films, games, theatre, or simply expanding network.’

Welcome to our 30 Shanghai-Hamburg College (USST) students. They arrived in Hamburg last week for a three-week summer school. To start them off, their tutors Muayyad and Luca took them for a guided tour of Hamburg's City Hall to hear about the history of this wonderful city and this beautiful building.

During their time in Hamburg they will be working with the HAW Hamburg students who will be attending the USST summer school in September in Shanghai. They will be working on a "Global Smart Cities" project and presenting their results on 25. August at 10:30 am at Campus Berliner Tor (BT5, room 2.11).

It feels very quiet without you. We hope our design students are enjoying the summer break. Being creative away from the university. 🎥🎨📷

Empty spaces at the Art & Media Campus Hamburg.

Undergraduate student Jamie Young from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania was looking for practical research experience. He chose the RISE summer internship programme from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) because it offered him an international research experience. As a RISE intern at HAW Hamburg’s Competence Centre for Energy Transition (CC4E) Jamie has been gaining expertise in the field of offshore hydrogen production.

From June to the beginning of August 2026 Jamie has been working with CC4E research assistant Sreejith Sreekumar on the development of a test rig that will use a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer to simulate wave-induced motions to gain a better understanding of the performance of the hydrogen production systems at sea.

‘I thought the opportunity to design and build a motion platform for the group's experiments was interesting as it would allow me to work with a broad set of skills from 3D-modelling, electronics design and controls. The internship has given me the opportunity to apply what I have learned in my engineering courses in the US to a real research project.

I’ve learned that in experimental research, a lot of time and resources are spent designing, building, and automating an experiment before any data is collected, and I found this part of the research process to be a ton of fun. I also learned a lot about the PEM electrolysis process, the hydrogen fuel cycle, and how these connect to offshore renewable energy resources.

RISE is an incredible way to grow both in academic and cultural experience. You get the opportunity to take ownership of a project and will learn a lot through that process. You also get thrown into a completely new environment where you can grow independently, meet people from all around the world, and share ideas you care about. Finally, taking advantage of the weekends allows you to travel around Germany and even to other countries in Europe, making the experience as rewarding outside the lab as it is within it.’

Full article: https://bit.ly/3TzzZfs

Sound on! This week, Ben Huff, professor for post-production and audio in the Department of Cinematic Arts at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is at HAW Hamburg with sixteen CSULB undergraduate film students for a week-long immersive audio workshop in collaboration with Professor Thomas Görne.

The workshop is an elective summer course for the CSULB students with the focus of learning more about advanced audio technologies which are not available at CSULB. The US students are working with HAW Hamburg students from the Hamburg graduate programme “Sound/Vision” to create short experimental 360-degree audio pieces in the 3-D audio lab.

The projects are centred around a story or theme, and mixed US-German student groups will source and record sounds, then edit and mix them into an immersive, narrative and emotional piece utilizing a multitude of loudspeakers surrounding the listener. The workshop provides both a creative outlet, as well as introduce the students to new technologies and practices.

This summer programme adds a new dimension to the strategic relationship between the universities. In the past eleven years there have been US and German film workshops on both sides of the Atlantic, but this is the first time a group of US film students has come to Hamburg for a summer programme.

Ben Huff is a documentary filmmaker and a professional film sound editor, designer, recording engineer and 5.1 surround re-recording mixer. In film audio, Ben has contributed to work that has screened worldwide and played in festivals including Sundance, The Berlinale and Venizia Film Festival. His recent sound design credits include Travis Wilkerson’s award winning “Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?” and KCET’s Emmy award winning “The Migrant Kitchen” and “City Rising” series.

Jinyi Sheng and Jiaqi Bian are two mechanical engineering students from our partner university, University of Shanghai for Science & Technology (USST). Together with 40 other USST students they are studying a semester in Hamburg as part of the double degree programme at the Shanghai-Hamburg College.

Both enjoy life in Germany, discovering the differences between Chinese and German cultures and meeting people from different backgrounds. Jinyi enjoys Hamburg’s parks and green spaces, while Jiaqi loves the port, as it reminds him of home, and the insights into local industry: ‘I had the opportunity to visit Lufthansa Technik and Airbus. Seeing manufacturing up close deepened my fascination for mechanical engineering and my motivation to pursue a career in this field.’

Jinyi’s favourite class is materials science: ‘The practical lab sessions help me understand the theory better and working with other international students has improved my teamwork and language skills.’ Jiaqi loves his CAD class. It sparked his enthusiasm for 3-D modelling and mechanical design: ‘Applying the software made me realise that engineering is not only about calculations and theories, but also about bringing creativity and ideas to life.’

They have travelled to different European countries during their semester, getting a broader international and cultural perspective. They also coordinated a wonderful China Evening with other USST students, sharing insights into life in China with HAW Hamburg students.

Studying abroad has forced them both out of their comfort zone and has made them more independent: ‘Professors encourage teamwork and discussions. Working in groups allows everyone to participate actively, exchange ideas and learn from one another. I am confident in facing new challenges, communicating with people from different cultures and taking responsibility for my own studies.’

In-between classes they like to grab a coffee and enjoy the green spaces on campus. ‘The café has become one of my favourite places to relax during breaks. These little moments make me feel comfortable and at home on campus.’