Also “Was den Unterricht betrifft” (concerning studies) or “WiSe 08/09” or “What does Melissa actually do everyday” or “Life as a German Student” or “The Long Awaited Entry”.
Because this entry has taken me so long to write, the title names have simply collected over time. “University” is only a convenient summation of all the things I want to talk about regarding my classes and studies here in Berlin.
First off, I’m finally getting used to the many rules and regulations of how to pass in an assignment, which is obviously a good thing to learn before my research papers are due next month. This is a sample heading from a “free-write” assignment that I passed in at the beginning of the month, where I talked about my impression of German students:
Institut für Europäische Ethnologie
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Tutorium Einführung in die Europäische Ethnologie
WiSe 08/09
Dozent: Sebastien Mohr
Melissa Weihmayer: „Freier Text“ Ausgabe
06.01.2009
Was den Unterricht betrifft
What do you think? Long, right? Complicated? Things that are complicated: this is a theme that will come up a few times in this entry. WiSe 08/09 is what we have to put as the third line of the heading for every paper. It must come after the course title and before the Professor (or “Dozent”, which means the person heading a class; this can be a student from a later semester as in my Ethnology Tutorium or a professor). It took me about three months before I figured out that WiSe does not actually mean anything having to do with the act of being “wise”, nor is it a secret acronym for a particular university or intro course. The big mystery is that it stands for “Winter Semester 2008/2009”. Very clever.
The entrance to the Silberlaube, a building at the Freie Universität (FU)
The Basics: University in Germany
Here’s the breakdown. One year of university in Germany consists of the Winter Semester, from mid-October to mid-February, and the Summer Semester, from mid-April to mid-July. That means people are in classes when it is warm and beautiful in the summer, but for that they have two months of vacation in the snow-is-melting-everything-is-really-gross months of February and March, and two months off in August and September. Students usually take these vacations to work full-time so that they can pay their semester fees (which is around 500-euros per semester in most provinces, but only 250 in the student-friendly city of Berlin) or to do short internships, called a “Praktikum”. A lot of students also work part-time (sometimes full-time) during the semesters.
German Universities are currently a mess. The research-universities in Germany are based on the innovative philosophies on education from Mr. Wilhelm Humboldt himself, someone whose texts we read in my intellectual history class. Up until two years ago, students would go to University to get a Magister degree, which is sort of like a B.A. and M.A. smushed together in five years. But these were very open, with few credit requirements. The goal was to allow students the freedom to study exactly what they wanted to learn within their “Fach”, or field. Some students would need ten years to complete their Magister if they were working in a job on the side, or if they simply wanted to keep taking courses for that long (something more possible if the universities don’t cost $40,000). Most people would finish in five. Robert was the last year of students to work towards a Magister degree, so he has 2-3 more years before finishing in Heidelberg.
German universities are in a total state of chaos since they are transitioning from this old, classically German system to the more internationally recognized B.A. and M.A. system. This means that the students have gone from little to no requirements to having far too many to get their degree in only three years. My roommate Anna takes 7 courses per week and works as a waitress in two different cafes on Wednesdays and Fridays. Yes, each course is only 2 hours long and meets once a week, and is either a lecture, which is huge, or a Seminar, which is hopefully smaller. But instead of really switching to an American system, what they don’t have are professors who have enough time to teach the same course twice a week. So it’s double the courses but the same amount of class time as what I would have in Chicago. That means, unfortunately, double the reading assignments. The result is very stressed students who do not do very much of their reading.
The nice part is that they usually don’t have to do that much to get credit for a course. The courses come in pairs, called “Modules”, usually with a more general lecture and then a seminar on the same topic that goes more in depth. The students can then choose to do work for 4 credit points or 2 credit points for each class within a Module (they need a total of 6 points per Module). That means that if a student wants 4 credits in the lecture, then he/she must do a presentation and write a “Klausur”, or a final exam, for that lecture. If a student wants 4 credits in the seminar instead, then he/she must do a presentation (probably) and write a “Hausarbeit”, or a final research paper, for the seminar. When one picks which one to work for the 4 points in, then one really only needs to prove that one “participated” in the other one, as in not missed fewer than 3 classes.
Are you thoroughly confused yet? The result of all this is that every student’s schedule looks dramatically different because every course and major has different requirements. And then in the classes themselves, only half of the students in a seminar really need to do the work for those 4 points, so half of the students participate, while for the other half, the most important part is signing one’s name on the attendance list. Imagine a classroom where the students in the front half of the room, around 25 of them, raise their hands to question or clarify something for whatever student presentation is being given. They also ask questions, and show interest during discussions. In the back half of the room there are a good 15 students literally with newspapers out, some sending text messages, some blatantly doing readings for other classes, and I even once noticed one student listening to his headphones for the entire 2 hours of class. While the quality of discussion is actually pretty high in the front half of the room, the fact that people have different requirements makes it rather hard to find the motivation to join those that do the work.
The Hauptgebäude (main building) at the Humboldt University (HU) on Unter den Linden
How to Survive the System
So the key to surviving in a German University seems to be to navigate the bureaucracy, to inform oneself of exactly what one must do in order to get credit for each class, and to do no more than one needs to for credit, unless one has the time and/or interest. But of those the most important is reading the fine print: how else could one learn knows what classes he must take in order to complete a B.A. in three years? Anna told me this as an afterthought, as if it’s assumed that one knows how to inform oneself about all of these things. But if I didn’t have the BCGS program giving me a little bit of advice here and there, I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, I’m just one out of 37 THOUSAND students at the Freie Uni.
Another, perhaps surprising requirement for surviving in a Germany University is English. Just as a side-note, most German students take at least one class/lecture in English before they leave University. This is because the professor is visiting from elsewhere for a semester, because of a high-number of foreign students in the class, or because it’s just simply a field that must be studied in English. This includes Anglistik, of course, and maybe even Amerikanistik, but also things like Economics courses or Physics. So speaking English well becomes incredibly useful.
So the key to surviving in a German University seems to be to navigate the bureaucracy, to inform oneself of exactly what one must do in order to get credit for each class, and to do no more than one needs to for credit, unless one has the time and/or interest. But of those the most important is reading the fine print: how else could one learn knows what classes he must take in order to complete a B.A. in three years? Anna told me this as an afterthought, as if it’s assumed that one knows how to inform oneself about all of these things. But if I didn’t have the BCGS program giving me a little bit of advice here and there, I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, I’m just one out of 37 THOUSAND students at the Freie Uni.
Another, perhaps surprising requirement for surviving in a Germany University is English. Just as a side-note, most German students take at least one class/lecture in English before they leave University. This is because the professor is visiting from elsewhere for a semester, because of a high-number of foreign students in the class, or because it’s just simply a field that must be studied in English. This includes Anglistik, of course, and maybe even Amerikanistik, but also things like Economics courses or Physics. So speaking English well becomes incredibly useful.
On the left, the Institute for European Ethnology at the HU
And then what?
And what happens for those students next, you may ask. That question does not have an easy answer. Whereas most Americans cannot expect a secure job without a B.A., if not a Masters, it is not quite the same in Germany. With a B.A. degree a student could either join the workforce if he/she can find a job, or go on to get an M.A. One can then stay in the university and embark on the incredibly complicated and difficult journey of trying to become a professor. As opposed to in the US, this takes a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of, well, there is no maximum. Even after 30 years of research, the university still might not have a position to offer a person that has published and made a name for him or herself. Therefore, there are a bunch of titles and honors for the between-steps. There’s something called the “Habilitation”, which is research work after one’s dissertation (I think… I don’t quite understand that part). Another thing I don't understand: my professor for my Friday class is officially titled "Dr. rer. pol. Hülya Tasci". Don’t know what that means. Too much Latin - in my opinion, these names and titles are just there to reinforce abstract hierarchies.
There’s more of an assumption here that those who study in a university will stay in academics. The reason is that there are many very high quality and well-regarded alternatives to University. This is called an “Ausbildung”, which is a two to three year internship at a business. They offer courses alongside the practical training, so people do this in retail or public relations or computer maintenance. Steffen, again Robert’s older brother who we recently saw in Dresden, began an Ausbildung at a very prestigious hotel. His plan was to become a chef, but although he is unquestionably a very good cook, he quickly discovered that had too many food allergies to make a life for himself working in a kitchen. But luckily there are other options.
People who go to Universities are either those who can afford the fees or those who completed “Gymnasium”, which is the sort of the elite high school track in Germany. Unlike in the US, parents do not put money aside for sending their kids to University; it was free when they were growing up, and the recently added fees have been a very disputed and upsetting topic for some families. Some people still go and do an Ausbildung after going to Gymnasium, but more people apply at University (I’ve met some people who did an Ausbildung, hated it, and then applied to University). If they don’t get a place after applying (which is INCREDIBLE… public universities that simply run out of places for students!), or if one’s sort of GPA after Gymnasium is not good enough for a specific field of study, then they would most likely take time off and apply again the following year.. Medical schools are notorious for requiring very high grades from high school, or, rather, very low grades since a 1 is the best and a 6 is the worst according to the German grading system.
The students in my classes, particularly in my ethnology lecture, are of all ages. I mentioned in another entry that I found it difficult to find students to spend time with on the weekends, outside of class time, even after striking up good conversations with some of my classmates. Well, as I was walking towards the cafeteria at the Humboldt with one student, I figured out why she might not have so much free time to hang out. She has two little kids, the oldest is 3 ½ years old, and she works part-time as a social worker. Her boyfriend helps a lot with the kids, and she’s much happier now that her courses are right in the center of Berlin, near where she lives. She worked for five years after high school, had her babies in the meantime, and she’s finally able to come back to school and work for her degree. I would never have guessed that she was a mother, particularly because she did not look any older than I do. But that’s an example of a student with her plate full. Now I’m finally figuring out what makes these German students seem so much more “mature” than the general pool of American college students: school is more complicated, Berlin is a big city, and real life starts a bit earlier here.
There’s more of an assumption here that those who study in a university will stay in academics. The reason is that there are many very high quality and well-regarded alternatives to University. This is called an “Ausbildung”, which is a two to three year internship at a business. They offer courses alongside the practical training, so people do this in retail or public relations or computer maintenance. Steffen, again Robert’s older brother who we recently saw in Dresden, began an Ausbildung at a very prestigious hotel. His plan was to become a chef, but although he is unquestionably a very good cook, he quickly discovered that had too many food allergies to make a life for himself working in a kitchen. But luckily there are other options.
People who go to Universities are either those who can afford the fees or those who completed “Gymnasium”, which is the sort of the elite high school track in Germany. Unlike in the US, parents do not put money aside for sending their kids to University; it was free when they were growing up, and the recently added fees have been a very disputed and upsetting topic for some families. Some people still go and do an Ausbildung after going to Gymnasium, but more people apply at University (I’ve met some people who did an Ausbildung, hated it, and then applied to University). If they don’t get a place after applying (which is INCREDIBLE… public universities that simply run out of places for students!), or if one’s sort of GPA after Gymnasium is not good enough for a specific field of study, then they would most likely take time off and apply again the following year.. Medical schools are notorious for requiring very high grades from high school, or, rather, very low grades since a 1 is the best and a 6 is the worst according to the German grading system.
The students in my classes, particularly in my ethnology lecture, are of all ages. I mentioned in another entry that I found it difficult to find students to spend time with on the weekends, outside of class time, even after striking up good conversations with some of my classmates. Well, as I was walking towards the cafeteria at the Humboldt with one student, I figured out why she might not have so much free time to hang out. She has two little kids, the oldest is 3 ½ years old, and she works part-time as a social worker. Her boyfriend helps a lot with the kids, and she’s much happier now that her courses are right in the center of Berlin, near where she lives. She worked for five years after high school, had her babies in the meantime, and she’s finally able to come back to school and work for her degree. I would never have guessed that she was a mother, particularly because she did not look any older than I do. But that’s an example of a student with her plate full. Now I’m finally figuring out what makes these German students seem so much more “mature” than the general pool of American college students: school is more complicated, Berlin is a big city, and real life starts a bit earlier here.
The snow-covered path towards the Freie Universität in Dahlem, a suburb of West Berlin
My week, my classes, and why I enjoy them
So after all of that background info here is the part about me. This is what my week has looked like since the start of the Winter Semester in mid-October:
----------------
Monday: German Class Deutsch als Fremdsprache Niveau B2,1 with Erasmus/exchange students at the Freie Universität from 4pm to 8pm
Tuesday: Lecture, Einführung in die Europäische Ethnologie (Introduction to European Ethnology), at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt Universität from 10am to noon
Seminar Berlin in der Zeitalter der Revolution (Intellectual History in Berlin from 1750 to 1848) at the Freie University from 2pm to 4pm (this is the course with my program, BCGS)
Wednesday: Tutorium zu der Einführung in die Europäische Ethnology (Tutorium for the Intro to European Ethnology lecture), again at the Institute for European Ethnology from 10am to noon
Yoga class at a small studio in Kreuzberg with a really nice German guy who rocks a navy-blue Mohawk (this has of late been replaced by my weekly afternoon nap)
Thursday: Seminar, Kulturpolitik und Kulturmanagement in Berlin (Politics and Management of Culture in Berlin) at the Freie Universität from noon to 2pm
Friday: Seminar, Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht und die Integration von Migranten und Migrantinnen (Citizenship-rights and Immigration Theory) at the Freie Universität from noon to 2pm
--------------------
In short I am taking three classes for credit, and four classes not for credit (the Tutorium, the Politics of Culture seminar, the German class, and of course yoga). My week is full and yet not full, stressful because the readings are really difficult for me (particularly for my Immigration Theory course), and yet not stressful because I have evenings free and the mornings to sleep in.
I’m really happy with the choices that I made. Part of the reason is that I am taking my courses with students who are in their first semester. Students measure their time in University in semesters here instead of in years. So instead of saying that one is a 2nd Year (aka Sophomore), one would say that one is in his/her third semester. Since they are “Erstsemesters” or First-Semesters, that means that they are also a bit lost, are also looking to reach out to new faces (or at least at the beginning), and are also learning the skinny on how to write research papers like I am.
I love my Intro to European Ethnology course, not because I needed an introduction to anthropology but because European Ethnology is dramatically different than what I expected. First off, it has a dark history in Germany; anthropology was used to prove that certain groups of peoples were scientifically inferior during National Socialism. The way that ethnology as a field deals with these dark origins (much as with colonial origins in France) is a fascinating reflection of how Germany reexamines its past to make better uses of its resources for the present and future. So many lectures, particularly at the beginning of the semester, mentioned some effect or limitation that German-ethnologists must deal with because of the perverted uses of Anthropology in Nazi-Germany. While we talk about colonial anthropologists, this aspect is rarely touched upon in Chicago. We’re about 100 students in the lecture, and my professor looks exactly like what one would expect an anthropologist to look like. He is furthermore approachable and has already made special considerations to fit the requirements of exchange students.
But I like my Tutorium even more than I like the lecture. I have already done a methods course in Anthropology (good times in Clare’s Eth-Meth class last spring). But in this Tutorium, I learn about how things are supposed to work here in Germany. That sounds simple, but it has been INCREDIBLY helpful. We spent an entire class going over German citation rules, and another class on how to look up books in the library catalogue. My tutor is a very cool student in his 10th semester in the Institute for European Ethnology. He’s currently working on his final Magister paper on homosexuality in the DDR, and has often shown us pieces from his research as an example for our own. He did a skit one day, showing us what the worst possible Referat (student presentation) might look like (showing up late, having a horrible Powerpoint, chewing gum, not preparing a handout, etc…) which is really the only way that I know what my professor will be looking for when I give my Referat on the 6th of February (not too far away!). I don’t know how other BCGS students are handling the work and their presentations in their classes, but I am really happy that I’ve gotten a step-by-step breakdown of it all. And we discuss with each other in small groups. That means I get to talk with other German students rather than just listen to presentations, which is one step towards getting to know new people.
My Friday seminar at the FU (Immigration Theory) is more like a typical political science course that one would take after one’s second semester. As such, it is chaos. We have around 35 students in the seminar… which is luckily twenty less than what we had on the first day of class. We only have around 30 seats in the classroom, so people that come last or late have to find chairs in other classrooms (my first two classes I had to stand near the door because there just wasn’t enough room for more chairs). This is the class in which only half of the students participate, while the party-half reads in the back (occasionally having side conversations, which is unbelievable, until the professor or another student complains about too much noise). There are simply too many students, but the teacher cannot turn anyone away (or could she? I don’t know). It’s a requirement for the seminar that everybody do a presentation. That means that just about every class consists of one or two or even three (were there four once?) student presentations. The professor, an Iranian woman who is a bit too nice for her own good, is in charge of making the reading list, and of assigning a day to those doing presentations. She seems incredibly knowledgeable, but unfortunately she does not often speak in class. I wish that she would synthesize the readings on her own more, because none of the student presentations are easy to understand. The handouts are two pages long, and they just sort of spit out every detail of the author’s argument.
Immigration rights and theory is a very heated topic in Germany. It is also a topic that constantly looks to two places for comparison: France, and, of course, the USA. Although I generally want to keep a low-profile and blend in with the German students (making friends because I am me, and not because I am American), I am occasionally expected to represent the US in that class. It is unavoidable! This means that the professor somehow assumes that I have spent time studying US Immigration policy and that I should know many more things about it than I do. I have participated on my own free will on a few occasions, with varying degrees of success. And I have been called upon to participate on other occasions, with varying degrees of embarrassment. In the second class, for instance, we were talking about two principles that differentiate French and German immigration policy. She suddenly looked around the crowded room and said, and where is that American, is she here? Oh yes. So what is the immigration policy like in the US? I was slightly more than shocked at the daunting question. Ummm, umm, well, I haven’t studied it in depth, but I do know that we have many difficulties with illegal immigrants, ummm, that cross the border from Mexico and then have to raise their kids without legal papers… (What do you think, was that a good try?) At least the other students around me, particularly those who hadn’t done the reading, were more than understanding. Apparently she tried to call on me on a day that I was too sick to go to class and was dismayed that I wasn’t there. I am researching American policy much more this month so that I can compare some aspects of German and American immigration rights in my research paper, meaning I won’t be so clueless the next time.
This is the last one, I promise. My intellectual history class is not a typical German class; in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a typical U-Chicago style seminar where we read primary texts and try our best to learn something from them. Three great things about this class are 1) I have managed to do all of the readings, including two entire (short) novels in German and excerpts from Faust Part I, 2) I get to study history (which I love) and will get credit towards my German minor, and 3) class is often replaced with field trips, such as our voyage to the Sans Souci castle in Potsdam and our walk around the center of Berlin to talk about Prussian buildings and architecture (see entry on Die Deutsche Kunst).
I like that I have one class where I understand the way it works. We read, we take notes, we analyze, we discuss. We are a small class, only 6 students and our professor from U-Penn who knows us all well. We meet in the BCGS Seminar room, which is (I may have mentioned this before) our “home-base” at the Freie University, with a mini-library and computers/printers for our private use. I can therefore focus more on the material and worry less about whether or not I am doing the work correctly or blending in as a German student (and contrastingly, sticking out like a sore thumb as an American one).
So after all of that background info here is the part about me. This is what my week has looked like since the start of the Winter Semester in mid-October:
----------------
Monday: German Class Deutsch als Fremdsprache Niveau B2,1 with Erasmus/exchange students at the Freie Universität from 4pm to 8pm
Tuesday: Lecture, Einführung in die Europäische Ethnologie (Introduction to European Ethnology), at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt Universität from 10am to noon
Seminar Berlin in der Zeitalter der Revolution (Intellectual History in Berlin from 1750 to 1848) at the Freie University from 2pm to 4pm (this is the course with my program, BCGS)
Wednesday: Tutorium zu der Einführung in die Europäische Ethnology (Tutorium for the Intro to European Ethnology lecture), again at the Institute for European Ethnology from 10am to noon
Yoga class at a small studio in Kreuzberg with a really nice German guy who rocks a navy-blue Mohawk (this has of late been replaced by my weekly afternoon nap)
Thursday: Seminar, Kulturpolitik und Kulturmanagement in Berlin (Politics and Management of Culture in Berlin) at the Freie Universität from noon to 2pm
Friday: Seminar, Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht und die Integration von Migranten und Migrantinnen (Citizenship-rights and Immigration Theory) at the Freie Universität from noon to 2pm
--------------------
In short I am taking three classes for credit, and four classes not for credit (the Tutorium, the Politics of Culture seminar, the German class, and of course yoga). My week is full and yet not full, stressful because the readings are really difficult for me (particularly for my Immigration Theory course), and yet not stressful because I have evenings free and the mornings to sleep in.
I’m really happy with the choices that I made. Part of the reason is that I am taking my courses with students who are in their first semester. Students measure their time in University in semesters here instead of in years. So instead of saying that one is a 2nd Year (aka Sophomore), one would say that one is in his/her third semester. Since they are “Erstsemesters” or First-Semesters, that means that they are also a bit lost, are also looking to reach out to new faces (or at least at the beginning), and are also learning the skinny on how to write research papers like I am.
I love my Intro to European Ethnology course, not because I needed an introduction to anthropology but because European Ethnology is dramatically different than what I expected. First off, it has a dark history in Germany; anthropology was used to prove that certain groups of peoples were scientifically inferior during National Socialism. The way that ethnology as a field deals with these dark origins (much as with colonial origins in France) is a fascinating reflection of how Germany reexamines its past to make better uses of its resources for the present and future. So many lectures, particularly at the beginning of the semester, mentioned some effect or limitation that German-ethnologists must deal with because of the perverted uses of Anthropology in Nazi-Germany. While we talk about colonial anthropologists, this aspect is rarely touched upon in Chicago. We’re about 100 students in the lecture, and my professor looks exactly like what one would expect an anthropologist to look like. He is furthermore approachable and has already made special considerations to fit the requirements of exchange students.
But I like my Tutorium even more than I like the lecture. I have already done a methods course in Anthropology (good times in Clare’s Eth-Meth class last spring). But in this Tutorium, I learn about how things are supposed to work here in Germany. That sounds simple, but it has been INCREDIBLY helpful. We spent an entire class going over German citation rules, and another class on how to look up books in the library catalogue. My tutor is a very cool student in his 10th semester in the Institute for European Ethnology. He’s currently working on his final Magister paper on homosexuality in the DDR, and has often shown us pieces from his research as an example for our own. He did a skit one day, showing us what the worst possible Referat (student presentation) might look like (showing up late, having a horrible Powerpoint, chewing gum, not preparing a handout, etc…) which is really the only way that I know what my professor will be looking for when I give my Referat on the 6th of February (not too far away!). I don’t know how other BCGS students are handling the work and their presentations in their classes, but I am really happy that I’ve gotten a step-by-step breakdown of it all. And we discuss with each other in small groups. That means I get to talk with other German students rather than just listen to presentations, which is one step towards getting to know new people.
My Friday seminar at the FU (Immigration Theory) is more like a typical political science course that one would take after one’s second semester. As such, it is chaos. We have around 35 students in the seminar… which is luckily twenty less than what we had on the first day of class. We only have around 30 seats in the classroom, so people that come last or late have to find chairs in other classrooms (my first two classes I had to stand near the door because there just wasn’t enough room for more chairs). This is the class in which only half of the students participate, while the party-half reads in the back (occasionally having side conversations, which is unbelievable, until the professor or another student complains about too much noise). There are simply too many students, but the teacher cannot turn anyone away (or could she? I don’t know). It’s a requirement for the seminar that everybody do a presentation. That means that just about every class consists of one or two or even three (were there four once?) student presentations. The professor, an Iranian woman who is a bit too nice for her own good, is in charge of making the reading list, and of assigning a day to those doing presentations. She seems incredibly knowledgeable, but unfortunately she does not often speak in class. I wish that she would synthesize the readings on her own more, because none of the student presentations are easy to understand. The handouts are two pages long, and they just sort of spit out every detail of the author’s argument.
Immigration rights and theory is a very heated topic in Germany. It is also a topic that constantly looks to two places for comparison: France, and, of course, the USA. Although I generally want to keep a low-profile and blend in with the German students (making friends because I am me, and not because I am American), I am occasionally expected to represent the US in that class. It is unavoidable! This means that the professor somehow assumes that I have spent time studying US Immigration policy and that I should know many more things about it than I do. I have participated on my own free will on a few occasions, with varying degrees of success. And I have been called upon to participate on other occasions, with varying degrees of embarrassment. In the second class, for instance, we were talking about two principles that differentiate French and German immigration policy. She suddenly looked around the crowded room and said, and where is that American, is she here? Oh yes. So what is the immigration policy like in the US? I was slightly more than shocked at the daunting question. Ummm, umm, well, I haven’t studied it in depth, but I do know that we have many difficulties with illegal immigrants, ummm, that cross the border from Mexico and then have to raise their kids without legal papers… (What do you think, was that a good try?) At least the other students around me, particularly those who hadn’t done the reading, were more than understanding. Apparently she tried to call on me on a day that I was too sick to go to class and was dismayed that I wasn’t there. I am researching American policy much more this month so that I can compare some aspects of German and American immigration rights in my research paper, meaning I won’t be so clueless the next time.
This is the last one, I promise. My intellectual history class is not a typical German class; in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a typical U-Chicago style seminar where we read primary texts and try our best to learn something from them. Three great things about this class are 1) I have managed to do all of the readings, including two entire (short) novels in German and excerpts from Faust Part I, 2) I get to study history (which I love) and will get credit towards my German minor, and 3) class is often replaced with field trips, such as our voyage to the Sans Souci castle in Potsdam and our walk around the center of Berlin to talk about Prussian buildings and architecture (see entry on Die Deutsche Kunst).
I like that I have one class where I understand the way it works. We read, we take notes, we analyze, we discuss. We are a small class, only 6 students and our professor from U-Penn who knows us all well. We meet in the BCGS Seminar room, which is (I may have mentioned this before) our “home-base” at the Freie University, with a mini-library and computers/printers for our private use. I can therefore focus more on the material and worry less about whether or not I am doing the work correctly or blending in as a German student (and contrastingly, sticking out like a sore thumb as an American one).
Tibetan cloths being sold outside of the FU cafeteria
How German Students Are Different
One thing that has astounded me time and time again is the comments and questions that people bring up in class. They don’t just bring them up. They are not afraid to challenge the professors. In one lecture that I didn’t end up staying with, one student (apparently this happens especially among Freie University Political Science students) actually argued that they should not be evaluated based on class participation. In fact they should not have grades for class participation at all. She said that it was even preposterous that the Dozent was requiring them to sign an Attendance sheet for every class. She considered it an insult to the students, and requested that it be negotiated. The entire class joined in on the debate. The student prevailed. Not only that, but later the Dozent asked the students what they expected to get out of the course topic. What did they want to learn about and what did they want to read? Is there anything on the reading list that they think looks uninteresting? The students made various request on additional themes and topics they wanted covered, and the Dozent said that she would add those into the syllabus as best she could. Wow.
It is clear, from exchanges such as these, first that the students are not afraid to speak up and second that the teachers are there to teach the students what they want to learn. In Chicago, I often have the feeling that by being in a class I am working for the teacher, doing his or her bidding and just sort of passively complying with his or her list of requirements, trying to stay on his/her good side. I never imagined that a syllabus could be a departure point from which to begin arguing. I admire this because it shows a sort of intrinsic motivation to learn something interesting. Although some people may be wasting their time - doing very little work in University and getting away with it - others are really there to get something out of their classes, and not because the teachers demand it of them. Having major research papers for every seminar also works with this theory: the learning happens on the student’s own time, and on the student’s own terms.
Sunset behind the Henry Ford building at the FU
And that is what I wrote about in my “Free-write” for my Tutorium, generally speaking. I mentioned both my admiration for the students and my hatred for the complicated bureaucracy. I am also proud to add that my tutor recommended that I submit that assignment to the student magazine in the Institute for European Ethnology – I’ll get published! In German! Only a few grammatical errors to correct…. But all in all, I have learned a lot about what it is that I like and dislike about Chicago just from what I’ve experienced so far here in Berlin, in a school system that is just as challenging as Chicago but in very different ways. It’s surprising what one can learn about a culture just by trying to blend in with it.You survived the mammoth entry! Exhausted? Still confused by all the bureaucracy? Yeah, me too.
1 comment:
As someone moving from UChicago to FU, this entry is the best thing ever!
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