On University Life in Germany (Read: Universität des Saarlandes)
German Universities don't function in the same way as Canadian Universities. OK, that was obvious, but I've got to start somewhere. First off, to be a 'full time student' in Germany is not only not as true as in Canada, it's also easier. German students here in the Saarland pay 150,-€ (for those who aren't aware, when you don't speak English, you use a comma (',') instead of a period ('.') to indicate a decimal point, and a hyphen ('-') is the same as '00' when dealing with currency.) every semester, and then they take as many classes as they want, at no additional cost, although despite this fact, most German students take no more than three or four courses every semester at 1,5 hours of instruction per class per week (I regret that I know nothing about lab time for science instruction).
As in Canada, there are lectures (Vorlesungen) and Seminars. However credit in a class is always on a pass/fail basis (i.e. do you get credit or not) and a 'pass' has a number of prerequisites which must be fulfilled. For lectures, this often includes regular attendance of a tutorial, and for seminars, regular attendance of the seminar itself. Most courses either end with a test or term paper, or require that you make a presentation to the class at some point in the semester. This is the extent of evaluation in the German system. If you pass the evaluation and fulfill all requirements (read: attendance), you get a schein (credit).
That's how it works here. Because German students take so few classes, a degree usually takes about 7(!) years.
Right now, many of the German Bundesländer (Lands of the Federal Republic of Germany- now you see why I use Bundesländer) including (I had to look these up- the English names for these places are really wierd, I include the German names in case someone cares or knows the German names better, like myself) Bavaria (Bayern), North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) have decided that they want to improve their education systems by demanding tuition of a whopping 500€ (~$685 CAN). When our instructor told us this in our German reading-understanding class, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the class was in an uproar about how unfair that was. That's when the japanese girl and I started laughing at their reactions. She pays 1.500.000¥ per year (~$14.400 CAN - the japanese don't subdivide their currency, and another exciting Euro convention! Instead of spaces or commas, they use periods to group the digits of large numbers!) in tuition alone, and, as I'm sure all the Canadian students can attest to, that won't pay for two courses at any Canadian institution. So next time that board of governors wants to raise your tuition, write a whiny letter to your MP about the sorry state of affairs!
Who'd have known I'd be using so many numbers in this post! Madness!
And what about the second most important (well, first for many of you- you know who you are...) part of going to university? Well, parties and partying here in Germany is very different, but not altogether a separate experience from the Canadian way of doing things. The key differences are that the booze is cheaper, and can be bought anywhere you can buy pretty much anything. However, because there's no such thing as a liquor store, hard-to-find liquor means that you're just not going to find it at all. For beer, this means if you want Bavarian Altbier (dark beer), go to Bavaria. If you party in a Kneipe (closest translation is pub, but it's not the same), you generally get two or MAYBE three beers on tap, and I can tell you already that your choices are limited. Some exceptional (and these exceptional ones are careful NOT to advertise themselves) places might have a little more. At the store, you can get whine and liquor from around the world easily enough, but beer other than Karlsberg is surprisingly difficult to find. Karlsberg, you see, is brewed in the Saarland. This means that pretty much everyone in the Saarland loves the stuff. The only other thing they drink commonly is Bitburger, which tastes pretty much the same (slightly better, I think) and is brewed in Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz). The problem for me is that these are blonde beers, and I like dark beer, like Newcastle or altbier, and occasionally I love a good Guinness. But I shouldn't whine, because I can drink high quality French or Italian whine (hahaha) for less than 5€- I mean the kind of stuff you schmucks in Canada pay $25+ for.
Next time, which may be next week, or maybe not, I'll address SMOKING, and I'm sure you'll find shocking. Unless you've, you know, been to Europe. Then I'm sure it really won't be too shocking. In fact, if you've spent a lot of time in Europe, I suggest you don't even read the next post, 'cuz you'll be all 'well d'uh! I knew that already!'
Anyway, if you are not one of the people described above, look forward to the next post.
As in Canada, there are lectures (Vorlesungen) and Seminars. However credit in a class is always on a pass/fail basis (i.e. do you get credit or not) and a 'pass' has a number of prerequisites which must be fulfilled. For lectures, this often includes regular attendance of a tutorial, and for seminars, regular attendance of the seminar itself. Most courses either end with a test or term paper, or require that you make a presentation to the class at some point in the semester. This is the extent of evaluation in the German system. If you pass the evaluation and fulfill all requirements (read: attendance), you get a schein (credit).
That's how it works here. Because German students take so few classes, a degree usually takes about 7(!) years.
Right now, many of the German Bundesländer (Lands of the Federal Republic of Germany- now you see why I use Bundesländer) including (I had to look these up- the English names for these places are really wierd, I include the German names in case someone cares or knows the German names better, like myself) Bavaria (Bayern), North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) have decided that they want to improve their education systems by demanding tuition of a whopping 500€ (~$685 CAN). When our instructor told us this in our German reading-understanding class, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the class was in an uproar about how unfair that was. That's when the japanese girl and I started laughing at their reactions. She pays 1.500.000¥ per year (~$14.400 CAN - the japanese don't subdivide their currency, and another exciting Euro convention! Instead of spaces or commas, they use periods to group the digits of large numbers!) in tuition alone, and, as I'm sure all the Canadian students can attest to, that won't pay for two courses at any Canadian institution. So next time that board of governors wants to raise your tuition, write a whiny letter to your MP about the sorry state of affairs!
Who'd have known I'd be using so many numbers in this post! Madness!
And what about the second most important (well, first for many of you- you know who you are...) part of going to university? Well, parties and partying here in Germany is very different, but not altogether a separate experience from the Canadian way of doing things. The key differences are that the booze is cheaper, and can be bought anywhere you can buy pretty much anything. However, because there's no such thing as a liquor store, hard-to-find liquor means that you're just not going to find it at all. For beer, this means if you want Bavarian Altbier (dark beer), go to Bavaria. If you party in a Kneipe (closest translation is pub, but it's not the same), you generally get two or MAYBE three beers on tap, and I can tell you already that your choices are limited. Some exceptional (and these exceptional ones are careful NOT to advertise themselves) places might have a little more. At the store, you can get whine and liquor from around the world easily enough, but beer other than Karlsberg is surprisingly difficult to find. Karlsberg, you see, is brewed in the Saarland. This means that pretty much everyone in the Saarland loves the stuff. The only other thing they drink commonly is Bitburger, which tastes pretty much the same (slightly better, I think) and is brewed in Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz). The problem for me is that these are blonde beers, and I like dark beer, like Newcastle or altbier, and occasionally I love a good Guinness. But I shouldn't whine, because I can drink high quality French or Italian whine (hahaha) for less than 5€- I mean the kind of stuff you schmucks in Canada pay $25+ for.
Next time, which may be next week, or maybe not, I'll address SMOKING, and I'm sure you'll find shocking. Unless you've, you know, been to Europe. Then I'm sure it really won't be too shocking. In fact, if you've spent a lot of time in Europe, I suggest you don't even read the next post, 'cuz you'll be all 'well d'uh! I knew that already!'
Anyway, if you are not one of the people described above, look forward to the next post.
posted by Unknown at 23:33
1 Comments:
So, what classes are you taking with your whopping 150 Euro tuition?
Post a Comment
<< Home