Kelsey's Travel Blog!
I travel not to escape life, but to be sure that life will not escape me! Come join me!
Universität Hamburg
When deciding where I wanted to go for my study abroad, I had two options: The University of Tübingen, which is located in the southern part of Germany and has a more authentic, college-town feel, or the University of Hamburg, located in the second largest city in Germany and in the northern part of the country. Naturally, after attending an urban school in Philadelphia, I had to go with Hamburg.
The University of Hamburg was established in 1919, but the history of it dates back to 1613. There are currently over 40,000 students enrolled at Uni Hamburg, and the university has had 6 Nobel Prize Winners and other scholars come through. There are six faculties at the university, which can best be compared to “colleges” at American schools, like the business school, the college of liberal arts, etc. I was put into the Facultaet von Wirtschafts- und Socialwissenschaft, better known as WiSi. This is the faculty for Economics and Social Studies, one of the most well-known and respected faculties in the university. They are also most well known for their parties at the beginning and end of the semester, actually thrown inside the WiSi building.
University life here in Germany is significantly different than in the States. Although we complain a lot about our tuition constantly going up, and having to fork out tens of thousands of dollars every year, you can see the difference in the infrastructure and the available technology compared to a school where you only pay an average of 500 Euros per year. I had professors still using projectors with clear slides that they would write on with a visa-vie marker. Either that or they would use a chalk board. I have not seen that since third grade. Especially coming from a school like Temple, which has a one-of-a-kind tech center with over 1000 computers, and smart classrooms and breakout rooms at students’ disposal, it was a shock to say the least. Nevertheless, I only had to spend 40 Euros on my books for the semester, compared to the $500 I normally spend.
Classes were different as well. Where I was used to attending one class either twice or three times a week, in Hamburg I would only go once a week, usually for a four hour period. There was no homework, no exam 1, 2, and 3. There was one paper or one test at the end of the semester, and that score would determine your grade for the whole semester. There was no attendance policy, or checking to see if you did your assigned reading. It was just expected.
There were two different type of courses I could take while at Uni Hamburg: DaF or regular german courses. DaF, or Deutsch als Fremdsprache, are courses geared towards students learning German as a second language. Most of the time, they are structured similarly to the German courses I have taken in the states: packets, weekly home works, grammar lessons, etc. I only took one DaF course during my semester, since being a student in the Faculty of Economics and Social Studies, I was able to take more than just the basic courses that most other exchange students would be taking.
The course I took, titled Relationships in modern Europe, was more focused on us sharing information about our home countries with the other members of our class. My classmates were from all over Europe; everywhere from Ireland to Poland and from Italy to Russia. We also had members from Brazil, Australia, the US, Japan, and China. In a way, this class was better than the other three that I took. I was more confident talking to other international students in German, the content was easier to understand, and there was a lot more dialogue in the class. I was glad, though, that I only took one of the DaF courses though. They weren’t much of a challenge, and my reason for coming to Hamburg was to to meet other Germans, not Australians, or god forbid other Americans. The class was an easy A, and it did help me significantly with my confidence in German.
The other three courses I took while in Hamburg were some of the hardest, yet most interesting courses I have ever taken in my college career. Since none of my classes taken in Germany could fulfill any of my Business classes, I was free to take any class I wanted, regardless of the topic. I finally had a break from Econ, finance, and marketing, and got to take anything offered by the WiSi Faculty. This also meant that in many of these courses, I was the only international student. All others were either first or second year German students pursuing their degrees. This was a challenge unlike anything I had faced throughout my time at Temple. Nevertheless, taking high caliber German courses was incredibly rewarding. I took one course on the political history of Germany with a professor who was nearly impossible to understand, yet finally, about halfway through the semester, everything seemed to click, and I was right there with the rest of the class.
I took another course called “Welfare state policies and social inequality In the international sphere”, where I took a critical look into the different types of social welfare systems in the world, and got to learn from an incredibly intelligent, young professor, who was so excited when I could shed a bit of light on the American social welfare system, and our heart-breaking social inequality in our country. It was probably my favorite class I took while there, and was really the only one I was able to engage in discussion in.
The final course I took, I took intentionally to see what it was like to be in a large lecture hall, learning in German. The class, called “Governance in International and transnational Institutions” was held in the large lecture hall on campus, and had around 150 students at a time. Naturally, on finals day, the entire hall was full, but throughout the semester students would trickle in from time to time. It was an interesting class to say the least, and was the only course that had a final exam that I had to take. After hours of studying and preparing, I entered into the short answer based exam feeling unprepared. Although I knew the answers to all of the questions, thanks to my intensive studying, it takes me nearly twice as long to write as my German classmates. So with 10 minutes left in the exam, and still a whole essay that need to be written, I wrote it in English. I figured I would either fail the exam, or the professor would overlook it and I would do well. Thank god most Germans, especially at the university level, speak nearly fluent English, because I not only passed, but I got the equivalent of an A! I should study here more often.
Overall, attending a German university was incredibly eye opening. I was paying roughly 300 Euros for the entire semester, and yet the education I was getting was at the same caliber as my school that costs $23,000. Yet, the quality of the infrastructure, the outdated blackboards and online systems proved to be incredibly frustrating. Yet it meant that you really had to go to class and focus on what the professor was saying, since they rarely used power points, or things like class capture. I liked the structure of the classes in comparison to the structure of classes at Temple. There was no attendance policy, no homework assignments, the occasional reading assignment, and the classes were only once a week. This made every student accountable for their own grades. Professors didn’t care if you showed up to class, or left early. They expected you to learn what you needed to learn, and that would be reflected in your final essay or test. If you failed the course, well that was your fault. It was both more work, and less work at the same time. Less busy work, which made every assignment more interesting and engaging. I firmly believe that pursing a master in Germany would be a great idea, and after this semester, I believe I could actually be very successful. My German still needs improvement, but regardless, I learned more in some of these classes than I ever did in Temple, and I believe that German departments everywhere could really benefit to learn from the structure of class in Germany. Yes, grammar and such are important, but it would be great if some of the classes taught every day at Temple were offered in German. Language studies are not always meant for academia, but also for practical usage, and it is hard to sometimes see the purpose of a language when you are only doing grammar packets.