The German Biology Students' Association - BuFaTa

The BuFaTa has been around for so long (1979) that it is almost impossible to find a person who remembers a time without it. Over the years, BuFaTa meetings have had a very diverse appearance, some more political than others, but most of them with a very productive outcome. In general, they are considered the place and time to discuss and exchange student matters at the different German universities, and -if consensus can be found - to form a united student opinion on these matters that is afterwards represented at the respective universities. But, just as SymBioSE meetings, they also offer the opportunity to get an insight into how the different biology departments handle and organize things, to test the local Mensa, and to get an idea about the environment and ecological features of the surrounding area during excursions.
BuFaTa meetings are held between three and four times a year, and the different student councils alternate in organizing them. An average BuFaTa attendee is a member of a biology student council at a German university, but all biology students are generally welcome.
Student councils or Fachschaften, as they are called in general, are comprised of a number of students, some of which are - depending on the university - elected by the biology student body to represent the students' opinions during faculty and departmental meetings. However, most of the work is done by volunteers and outside the official faculty meetings. During the meetings and opening hours of the Fachschaft, both the elected and voluntary members offer advice on the various career options within the program, give out exam protocols, and organize introductory weeks for first-year students as well as first-year retreats to make their start as smooth as possible.

The German BuFaTa homepage can be found online at http://www.bufata-biologie.de. On this webpage, the upcoming BuFaTa meeting is usually announced, and links to most of the German Fachschaften can be found, along with further information about past meetings. The BuFaTa homepage does its best to keep the links to the student councils' homepages up-to-date, and most of these homepages provide contact information to active members of the council who are more than willing to help you out ( http://www.cip.biologie.uni-osnabrueck.de/fachschaft/biomap/biomap.html ).