Arnold then studied photography at the Fine Arts Academy ("Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst" / HGB) in Leipzig between 1950 and 1955, and emerged with a degree. She was nevertheless disappointed by her time at the HGB. After the war the central third of Germany (including Gera, Leipzig and the eastern half of Berlin) had found itself administered as the Soviet occupation zone. The zone was relaunched in October 1949 as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). At the academy in Leipzig the onset of the "formalism debate" during the early 1950s constrained the freedom of the teachers to discuss or depart from a curriculum which was uncompromisingly based on government strictures and official beliefs concerning "socialist imagery". Experiments were strictly off the agenda, and might have led to career damaging consequences. These issues reflected the wider situation in the country in which, in 1955, Ursula Arnold attempted to launch herself on a career as a freelance photographer.
