Combining Work and Study

Foreign students with a residence permit in accordance with § 16 AufenthG may work 120 full or 240 half days per calendar year. In addition, you may work as a student assistant at universities without limitation. A permit for this is not needed. In general, gainful employment per semester should not exceed 20 hours per week, because contributions to the pension insurance would also have to be paid.

Student Assistant Positions at HTW Berlin are limited and are assigned on a competitive basis, at the earliest during the 1st semester of studies.

Comments and examples for whole and half days

With 240 half-working-days per year, this is virtually normal full-year employment. Half days are working days, at which up to half of the operational working hours (calculated without the breaks) are worked. So if a company's regular daily working hours are seven hours, half a working day is three and a half hours. And if, for example, eight hours for a full-time employee are agreed in a supermarket, half a day is four hours. Full days include all working days that work more than half of normal working time. In the company from the first example, a daily employment of four hours is calculated as a whole day. In case of doubt it has to be assumed that half a day will take four hours of working time.

Keep flexible working hours: For example, if you work a total of 12 hours per week in a company for three days a week and are free to divide time, you can work two times three and one six hours, or three times four hours. In the first case a whole and two half days, in the second case only three half days are "consumed". In the first case, half a day is "given away" as a result. The working days should be planned so that no job opportunities are given away. It's better to work four hours instead of two and eight hours instead of five!

Semester Break

Most students want to work full-time during the semester break because they have much less time during the semester. That's why it's important to be able to combine half and full days. For example, if you work for one month each (22 working days) during two semester breaks (44 full working days), then you would have 76 full working days left this year, which can be divided into 152 half days.