Max K.:
The subsidiary subject is, from my point of view, the optimum choice for those who wish to deal with another field than pure informatics on university level. This provides the opportunity to stand out with interdisciplinarity later.

Of course, the two other options, the practical training and the term abroad, have their own advantages: In a practical training I can distinguish with working experience, in a term abroad with international experience. I would recommend everybody to follow the own preferences instead of what they learned by hearsay about the wishes of potential employers. None of the three qualifications seems to be superior to the others.

I decided for mechanical engineering as this field, in addition to computer science, was of interest for me even before and has many applications which are closely related to computer science. Accordingly, I selected control technology, robot technology, automation, production and assembly, additive production and production measurement technology as modules. Other choices would have been possible and potentially useful. The selection must always be made in coordination with the other module times here. Attendance is not mandatory here, but the lectures are usually better to understand than reading the relevant slide sets alone. Furthermore, level of difficulty and focuses of the module can be better evaluated when attending. And it makes sense to have some modules available, just in case one considers a change of subject.

Apart from a few exceptions, my lecturers considered it as interesting to have students from other specializations in their lectures and seminars. Accordingly, it was usually no problem to get some help were difficulties occurred due to lacking prior knowledge.

Retrospectively, I am happy with the choice I made and would take the same decision again. It was interesting, it was feasible and the gained knowledge, such as about bus systems as part of the module control technology, was helpful to me even during my studies when looking for an employer in the field of hardware-related programming.