Living in Giessen

Everything within easy reach

Giessen benefits from its central location in Germany, 60 kilometres north of Frankfurt (Main). The city offers a wide range of cultural activities, and its situation in the Lahn River valley amidst a picturesque landscape of rolling hills makes for high-quality leisure and recreational possibilities. Students and researchers find it easy to settle in here. The cost of living is relatively modest, and getting around is made easy thanks to excellent public transport and proximity to Frankfurt Airport. Giessen has the highest concentration of students in Germany, making it a very ‘youthful’ city. For further information, see the international pages on the JLU website.

Accommodation

As a Phd candidate in Giessen, you can choose to take a room in the student halls of residence or try to find a suitable room or apartment privately.

For organisational steps needed to rent a room in the halls of residence, please see the international pages of the university website.

The private market for accommodation has its seasonal fluctuations according to university terms and semester breaks. One-bedroom apartments can be hard to find, but it is relatively easy to find a room in a shared flat, which is a quite typical local and German form of living for students. People do not usually share rooms in these flat, in order to ensure a comfortable standard of privacy. Beyond this, however, the ways in which people approach flat-sharing can differ greatly. A distinction is often made between a merely functional shared flat (Zweck-Wohngemeinschaft) and a more authentically shared flat which fulfils the literal meaning of the German word for shared flat, Wohngemeinschaft. The first part of the word, Wohnen, means living in an accomodation, the second, Gemeinschaft, means community. In such flats, it is quite common that it is not the landlord who decides about who actually takes a room, but the flatmates who decide whether a candidate would fit in to the ‘WG’.

The best online source for private accommodation in Giessen is the weekly magazine Express:

Sports

As an adjunct to academic life and research activity, there is a broad range of individual and team sports on offer.

Sports activities are organised (along with fitness and relaxation training) by the University’s Allgemeine Hochschulsport or University Sports Association. The spectrum ranges from autogenic training and judo, through soccer and volleyball, to such specialised activities as capoeira and rock-climbing. There are ample interesting sports opportunities beyond the university as well. Whether you like waterskiing, wakeboarding, night skating, or tramping and biking in pleasant natural surroundings – every wish is catered for.

Sightseeing

A very special gem is the University Botanical Garden, the oldest such garden in Germany that is still in its original location.

In 1609, very shortly after the founding of the university, the Botanical Garden was established as a hortus medicus, or medicinal herb garden. Besides having considerable value for scientific research, it serves the visitor as a quiet oasis in the center of Giessen.

The ‘Mathematikum’ – a museum of international repute – attracts visitors from all over the world. The objects on display are not there just to be looked at. Visitors are encouraged to handle the exhibits in order to discover painlessly the laws of mathematics – to really grasp them, as it were. To this purpose, there are inviting interactive displays such as experiments with mirrors, ball tracks, mathematical board games and puzzles, and bubble-blowing.

Justus Liebig, whose name was given to the University of Giessen after the Second World War, taught here from 1824 to 1852 as professor of chemistry. In the rooms of his former institute, a museum was opened in 1920. It is one of the six most important chemistry museums in the world and a historical monument of the highest value, because it is here that the most important German chemist laid the experimental foundations for his influential innovation.

Cultural Events and Festivities

The whole year round, Giessen offers a range of high-quality cultural events.

Numerous intercultural societies and cultural initiatives enliven the scene. Giessen’s Municipal Theatre offers a many-sided repertoire – opera, musicals, operetta, classic and contemporary drama, and modern dance theatre. The University Orchestra can be counted on for excellent programmes both at home and abroad. A full-size symphony orchestra, it is made up of students as well as university teaching and ancillary staff. The orchestra is always open to musicians interested in joining. Music societies and performing groups, from chamber orchestras to jazz ensembles and gospel choirs – all these add further colour to Giessen’s musical palette. The University’s musicians contribute to the cultural life of the city by staging concerts in the University auditorium and the Botanical Garden, and within the framework of Giessen’s Jazz Initiative. In October, the ‘diskurs’ Theatre Festival introduces students and the public at large to a broad thematic spectrum of new work by young artists. Students of JLU’s Department of Applied Theatre Studies have been putting on this festival for two decades now, inviting young talents in the dramatic arts from all over Europe to demonstrate their performing skills and innovative creations. More than 100,000 people attend Giessen’s municipal festival every August. In the course of the three days of the festival, around 50 music groups and dance ensembles perform on several stages in the downtown area.