Rosenheim

The Romans had a military station called Pons Aeni at the Inn crossing here around 15 BC. A castle is first mentioned in 1234, the settlement got market rights in 1328, and in the late Middle Ages river trade on the Inn made it one of the largest markets in Bavaria. A royal saltworks opened in 1810 and ran until 1958, the first railway station opened in 1858, and King Ludwig II granted town rights in 1864. In 1944 and 1945 air raids hit the station area hard, but the old market square survived much better than the area around the tracks.

What you see today is a town of colourful, arcaded houses around Max-Josefs-Platz, with the Mittertor as the only one of five original market gates that is left. A narrow channel, the Stadtbach, runs through the centre. The first Fachhochschule opened in 1971, and the university is now the town's best-known institution. The folding-boat maker Klepper was long the biggest employer, and today the larger names include the Sparkasse, Gabor shoes, Kathrein, Steelcase, Krones, the Stadtwerke and the RoMed clinic.

Do not expect nightlife on a Munich scale. Rosenheim is a place where students cycle to lectures, go to the mountains on Saturday and meet friends at a beer garden in summer. If that sounds like what you want from two to four years in Germany, it is a good fit. If you want clubs and a big international scene every night, you will take the train to Munich.

The region around Rosenheim is marketed as Chiemsee-Alpenland. The tourism board lists more than 30 lakes, over 300 hiking tours across the Inn valley, Mangfall valley, Chiemgau and Chiemsee area, and six cable cars and one rack railway. The Chiemsee, nicknamed the Bavarian Sea, has two islands, Herrenchiemsee with its castle and Fraueninsel.

Closer in, the city's own newcomer guide names two swimming lakes, the Happinger See and the Happinger-Au See, an outdoor pool on Chiemseestraße and the Hans Klepper indoor pool on Stemplingerstraße. It also says the mountains at Bad Feilnbach and the Samerberg are reachable by bus, with the Samerberg bus running only in summer, from May to October.

TH Rosenheim's own sports programme leans on this landscape: mountain biking, road cycling, climbing and bouldering, mountaineering, ski touring, paragliding, kiting, sailing, kayaking and wakeboarding are all in the list, and some of them are organised through a WhatsApp group.

Rosenheim station is on the Munich-Salzburg, Munich-Verona and Salzburg-Innsbruck lines and handles about 20,000 passengers a day, which makes it Bavaria's seventh-largest station. The city joined the MVV Munich transport association on 10 December 2023, and the city bus network has 14 lines. The A8 and A93 motorways and the B15 meet here.

Ask the university's Student Administration (building B, room B 0.15) whether a student transport ticket applies to you before you buy a monthly pass. For short trips, the city's newcomer guide recommends buying a bike if you stay for longer, and reminds you that the fine for travelling without a valid bus or train ticket is 60 EUR, and that bus tickets must be stamped.

TH Rosenheim is a university of applied sciences, so expect smaller groups, projects, labs and internship semesters rather than large lecture halls. The main campus is compact, with glass-and-wood buildings and a paved square in the middle where students sit between lectures. Learning and course materials run through the Learning Campus platform, and the university has a Writing Center and a Language Center for help with texts and German.

Most of your day happens within a short walk: lectures, the library, the canteen and the dorms are all in the same part of town, and the Studierendenwerk halls are served by city bus 1 to the university.

The Studierendenwerk München Oberbayern has 458 places in Rosenheim, in the halls on Marienberger Straße and Westerndorfer Straße. Waiting time is given as about one to two semesters, so apply as soon as you have an admission.

The university's housing page also names a second route of private student residences next to campus: CampusRo with over 200 apartments, ro-living with furnished one-room apartments of 24 to 35 m2, an apartment house on Wernhardsbergerstraße about two minutes' walk from campus, and a student house in the south of the town. There is a Catholic student residence, St. Sebastian, with 60 rooms for national and international students, and the Schüler- und Studentenzentrum has shared and single apartments. Private rooms are listed on WG-Gesucht, Immowelt and the Studierendenwerk's private accommodation service, and on the notice boards in front of room A Z1.50 and on the TH dashboard.

A different option is Wohnen für Hilfe, run by Nachbarschaftshilfe Rosenheim: you get a room in return for everyday help in the household.

The Studierendenwerk Mensa is at Hochschulstraße 1, open Monday to Thursday 8:15 to 15:00 and Friday 8:15 to 14:00, with meals served from 11:00. The university also has a StuBistro on the Rosenheim campus. You pay with a Legic card.

The sports programme is large. It includes team sports, martial arts, dance such as bachata, lindy hop and tango, yoga and meditation, and outdoor sports such as ski touring and kayaking. You sign up through the Learning Campus, and many groups run on WhatsApp. Check the page for prices, since the university does not list them in one place.

In the evening, the options in town are cafes and beer gardens, the Herbstfest in late summer (it starts on the last Saturday of August and runs 16 days), ice hockey at the Starbulls, and the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum with its festivals. Bigger nights out mean the train to Munich or Salzburg.

Students from outside the EU may work up to 140 full days or 280 half days a year. Student assistant jobs at the university are a separate category, and self-employment is not allowed. If you have a study visa, ask the immigration office how much you may work before you start.

The city's newcomer guide describes the usual routes: working-student jobs with a company, often 10 to 20 hours a week, student assistant posts of up to 20 hours a week, and mini-jobs. The job portal of the university is the first place to look.