#ects points

When you're looking ahead to the exams that you are going to take while in Germany, it's worth looking into the number of points that a given module, lecture, or seminar is worth, as unlike many U.S. colleges and universities, there is not usually a set number of courses that you have to take in a semester to reach "full time" student status.  Germany, as with the rest of Europe, operates on the European Transfer Credit System (ECTS), and assigns a point value to each lecture (exam), seminar (presentation or essay), and lab course (lab report).

In Germany, a full time student reaches about 60 ECTS points total for a year, and 30 points for a semester.  Before you leave to come to Germany for a semester or year abroad, you should look into how your home institution converts ECTS points to their internal points system or course credits.  Depending on the college or university, you may need to simply clear a certain number of ECTS points, or you might have to register for a certain number of courses that each have a given number of points.  When I studied abroad, my college said that I needed 25-30 ECTS points, and counted the 4 highest point value courses I took as the 4 I needed as a "full time" student, while also listing the remaining points on my transcript.

A full module with lecture and seminar should have 8-10 points associated to the full module, though some may have as few as 6 points.  You should double check if you sign up for a module that you are signed up for both the seminar and lecture, or, if you only intend to sign up for either the lecture or module, that you are only registered for one or the other.  Should you be taking a complete module, bear in mind that your grades for both will be averaged together, based on the point value for each part of the module.  If you will be taking a lab course, you should confirm when the lab course will be taking place.  It's not uncommon for lab courses to take place during the semester break, meaning the last two months of the official semester time (February and March; August and September).  You can continue to live in the student housing during this time (so no worries there), but if you have to return to the U.S. by a certain date to continue on to your next semester, this could end up being a scheduling issue.