International Summer and Winter University FUBiS at Freie Universität Berlin Starts New Year with 133 Participants

Last Friday Freie Universität Berlin welcomed 133 students from twenty countries to its International Summer and Winter University (FUBiS) to kick off the 2025 winter term. In the first three-week FUBiS term of the new year participants will be able to enroll in German as a foreign language courses and six different subject courses in English. Fourteen students from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico have been awarded grants for Term I by Santander Universities Germany. Most of the students this term come from the United States, South Korea, and China. The term will run through January 24, 2025.

Students in the FUBiS program choose from subject courses in English on sustainable business, European history, economics, politics, and law, alongside German language and culture courses for different proficiency levels.

Freie Universität Berlin awards credits for all FUBiS courses according to the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which students can then have recognized at their home university. All the courses are designed with a special focus on the city of Berlin with its immense cultural and historical significance. The academic program also includes field trips such as a guided tour of the Reichstag building.

"With 133 participants this FUBiS winter term is one of our biggest winter cohorts ever. It was great to see all’of these students eagerly chatting among themselves and getting to know each other last Friday," says Program Director Sophia Schmieder. The first week of courses will offer students plenty of opportunities to network, including a tour of Freie Universität’s Lankwitz campus with FUBiS Student Advisors, an interactive workshop, and a meetup at a student café.

Feedback from participants frequently mentions how well-organized the FUBiS program is and that they feel very well taken care of. According to a student survey taken during the 2024 summer term, ninety-six percent of respondents stated that they were satisfied with the support they received as well as with the FUBiS team’s availability.

The FUBiS Summer University was held for the first time in 1998, and in 2007 a winter term was added. FUBiS offers summer and winter programs lasting three to six weeks that are made up of German language lessons and a wide range of academic courses primarily conducted in English. In past years, FUBiS has regularly welcomed around 600 students from forty countries to Freie Universität Berlin.

In 2018 the Forum on Education Abroad, a US-based non-profit organization committed to improving education abroad, awarded FUBiS certification through the Quality Improvement Program (QUIP). FUBiS remains the only summer and winter university in Germany to have successfully completed the rigorous QUIP evaluation. "The goal of FUBiS is to help to create a global community of empowered individuals who will actively shape a better future," says Sophia Schmieder. That is why FUBiS is aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), uses resources to run its courses in an economical and conscientious manner, and increasingly incorporates sustainability related topics in its curriculum.

You can find up-to-date information on FUBiS’ study abroad options and the course syllabi at www.fubis.org.

The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität since its founding in December 1948.