About the Junior Year in Munich Program

Sponsored by Wayne State University since 1953, JYM is the oldest U.S.-based study abroad program in Germany.

For more than 40 years, JYM has advanced study abroad as an integral part of U.S. undergraduate education. More than 4,300 students from 500+ US colleges and universities have studied abroad in Germany with JYM. Students from any accredited U.S. or Canadian college or university are welcome to apply for admission to the program.

JYM enjoys privileged status as an affiliated academic institute at LMU Munich approved by the LMU Munich Academic Senate and is an official course of study (Teil-Studiengang) approved by the Bavarian State Ministry of Culture. Hence our name, the "Junior Year in Munich an der Universität München."

JYM students are enrolled at LMU Munich and have access to the full university curriculum in any major, except law and medicine. Students create their course own schedules from among university courses, JYM courses (German language and area studies electives), undergraduate research projects and internships. Our program offers academic year and one-semester program options and provides $65,000 in program scholarships annually to students in need of financial assistance. All instruction is in German.

LMU Munich

The Junior Year in Munich program is affiliated with the prestigious Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich). Founded in 1472, LMU Munich is one of the oldest universities in Germany and has repeatedly been ranked the number one research university in Germany. In 2006, an international jury of the German Research Foundation and Science Council selected LMU Munich to receive one of Germany's first "university of excellence" awards.

In 2015-16 LMU Munich was ranked 29th among the top 30 universities in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

With a distinguished record as home to 13 Nobel Prize winners (most recently 2005 in physics) and 10 Leibniz Prize winners (most recently 2013 in medical research), LMU Munich enjoys the reputation as a prestigious institution of higher education for more than 50,000 students, including 7,400 foreign students from 122 nations. The main campus of the university is located in the center of Munich. LMU Munich is divided into 18 faculties which are home to 203 institutes that focus on research and teaching within 129 disciplines and 150 degree-granting subject areas. The 2014 QS World University Rankings rate the following fields at LMU Munich within the top 50 worldwide: physics #13, history #27, modern languages #30, biological sciences #33, psychology #37.

Faculties in the humanities, social sciences, and business administration are located on the main campus in the city enter, while most of the natural and life sciences are concentrated at the HighTechCampus in Grosshadern-Martinsried just outside Munich, a one-of-a-kind research campus in Europe. The LMU Munich Medical Center is one of the largest in Germany and is recognized internationally for its research, teaching and patient care.

LMU Munich enjoys an excellent library system. Faculty and students also have access to the Bavarian State Library, the Technische Universität Munich Library, other local and state LMU partner libraries, archives and the German university library loan network. The main University Library houses nearly three million titles, including some 3000 unique manuscripts and 300,000 exceptionally rare printed books. Its departmental libraries add another four million titles, making the LMU library system both large and diverse.