The Germans definitely have strange semester dates. The
summer semester only just began about 3 weeks ago and doesn’t officially end
until August 2nd, whereas in Dundee
everyone is done for the year. It’s a bit of a pain that my summer break will
be so short but at the same time, the weather here is so nice that I feel like
I’m still on holiday. I imagine that this might cause problems when it comes to
studying. I mean, who wants to revise when they can go swimming in the lake, or
bbq in the sunshine?
Picking classes this semester has been causing problems once
again; not all the classes which had previously been advertised as available
this semester were actually on the database when it came time to pick. As well
as this, halfway through the online sign-up period they decided to make some of
the classes available to international students unavailable to those doing
Erasmus. I luckily signed up to one before this happened, although I appear to
be the only Erasmus student who did – probably because I only actually found
the class after some ingenious searching. I’m told that they can’t throw me out
though as I was already accepted into the class. Somehow I’ve managed to find
enough classes to get me the required points, but one of these requires me to
write a 20-page essay over my summer break on a topic that’s pretty foreign to
me.
There’s a pretty big workload here compared to Dundee, which
would be completely fine if I’d come here in 2nd year and only had
to pass, but it’s a little more stressful doing it in 3rd year,
knowing that I need good grades in everything. Considering I need to make at
least 6 presentations in the next two months it’s hard not to crack under the
pressure at times. Though admittedly, that’s partly due to my bad time
management. I also still need to have my new module choices approved, which is
an interesting thought, as if they don’t accept them there’s nothing I can
really do except repeat the year.
Ranting aside, I am actually really enjoying my classes and
am finally getting a chance to study things that interest me such as renewable
energy in Europe , German history, culture and
society, and the functioning of the EU. I’m also feeling a lot better about
studying French this semester. I’ve found a conversation class which covers
relatively complex topics, whilst spending time revising very basic themes,
which is something I really need, as it feels like I’ve forgotten practically
everything since I left school (one of the downsides of taking two gap years I
guess!).
When not gallivanting off half way around the world, I spent
a lot of my semester break doing research on Freiburg during the First World
War as part of an international history project, the results of which we
presented in Berlin a few weeks ago at the
History Campus ‘Europe 14/14’. It was actually
a pretty huge event with over 400 participants from around the world. Angela
Merkel was even there for the opening ceremony, and Steinmeier, the foreign
minister, made an appearance later that week. It was really exciting to be a part
of it all, especially as a workshop speaker, and see how the war is perceived
nowadays from a multitude of different national perspectives. Here is a short video from the end of the event:
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