The film is about two friends, Moritz and Dirk, who move from a small village in the state of Brandenburg to Darmstadt to study mathematical economics at the Technische Universität (TU).

The friends Moritz and Dirk are accepted at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and leave their small home village in Brandenburg to set out for the big town to study mathematical economics.

While Dirk becomes a successful student and masters tutorials and term papers with ease, Moritz is distracted from his studies by the university lifestyle and soon falls behind.

Following the slogan “Screw the early bird” Moritz prefers to party with his roommate Bernd and gets himself through life with various side jobs.

This fuels him with new ambition and together with his Indian fellow student Aswin, who lives his life in discipline, Moritz picks himself up and passes his intermediate diploma.

In gratitude he shows Aswin the more enjoyable side of university life and takes him along to drink beer.

In the end, Moritz and Dirk are in Australia, where they lead a successful chain of restaurants for Maultaschen, a special German dish.

Frieder Wittich got to know the band Bonaparte at a small concert in Berlin and spontaneously invited them to take part in the shooting of 13 Semester.

The band cancelled a concert for this film and specially wrote a new song that is played over the end credits.

Darmstadt, the fourth-biggest city in the state of Hessen, had won in a casting against Münster, Karlsruhe and Konstanz, among others.