Founded in 1975 with the merger of the Berlin State School of Fine Arts and the Berlin State School of Music and the Performing Arts, the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin) is one of Germany’s few art colleges with full university status. The University consists of four colleges specialising in fine arts, architecture, media and design, music and the performing arts. The Berlin University of the Arts is one of the largest institutions of music and arts in the world.

Berlin’s art universities concentrate their potentials in two inter-university centres: The Jazz Institute Berlin (JIB), where students and teachers of Berlin University of the Arts and the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler work together, and the University Dance Centre (HZT). The latter not only links Berlin University of the Arts and the Academy of Dramatic Art Ernst Busch, it also cultivates contacts with Berlin’s independent professional dance scene through cooperation with "Tanzraum Berlin".(www.udk.berlin.de)

'Berlin University of the Arts cultivates more than 130 international partnerships with other universities, and more than 800 foreign students - corresponding to ca. 20 % of all our students - are currently registered at the university (www.udk.berlin.de) - 2008.

Only students from institutions who have a bilateral agreement with the UdK Berlin are eligible to come to the UdK as exchange students and all applications have to be transmitted through the exchange coordinator of the home institution. Lectures and seminars are given in German.Individual lessons may be given in other languages, depending on the teacher. German lessons are offered to exchange students at the university, free of charge.

Courses at the Berlin University of the Arts
By Discipline

College of Fine Arts
Fine Arts
Teacher Training in Fine Arts
Masters Degree - Art in Context

The College of Architecture, Media & Design
Architecture
Doctorate Degree in Architecture
Industrial Design (Product Design, Fashion and Textile Design)
Visual Communication (focus of study isin the essential areas of Graphic Design, Exhibition Design and Photo/Film/Video.)
Strategic Communication and Planning
Experimental Design
Electronic Business

College of Music
Artistic Training / Instrumental
Artistic Training / Conducting
Composition
Church Music
Sound Engineering
Jazz (at the Jazz Institute Berlin)

Pedagogical Education Courses :
School Music
Diploma of Music Education
Jazz (Bachelor of Music Education)

Doctoral Courses:
Musicology and Music Education
Artistic Training / Choral Conducting

College of Performing Arts
Singing / Music Theatre
Acting
Musical - show
Stage Design
Costume Design
Creative Writing for the stage
Dance

Theatre Education / Drama

Junios Student Performing Arts Courses - Singing at the Julius Stern Institute for the Advancement of Young Musicians

Central Institute for Further Education
Cultural Journalism
Leadership in Digital Communication
Music Therapy
Sound Studies / Acoustic Communication

Past Students - established and famous artists
Arnold Schonberg