Month: November 2014

Hallo Leute!

I’m going to plead the same excuse as Alex – it’s a good sign that I’m late in posting another blog, because that must mean I’m having too good a time to write home. I thought this time around, I’d talk about what I’ll be doing here in Göttingen this week, to paint a picture of a typical week. Los geht’s!

Montag

– I get to sleep in! I have just one class in the late morning. My mentor teacher intentionally gave me a light schedule on Mondays so that I can ease back into the week.
– Tomorrow, I’ll be starting a German class at the uni that focuses on writing. I was lucky enough to be able to register as a student even though I’m not enrolled in a program, which means I can take language classes, and also (more importantly?) ride the train across all of Niedersachsen for free with the student Semester-Ticket.
– Every week on Monday, I meet with one of my language tandem partners. I put up a poster at the uni when I first came to Göttingen and had a tremendous response. The girl on Mondays is absolutely lovely: close to my age and with similar interests, so we have loads to talk about. We speak half the time in German and the other half in English, so that we can each practice speaking.

Dienstag

– Tuesdays are my day off from my job. Super luxurious.
– I already take one German class at the uni called “Landeskunde Interkulturelle.” It’s a combined speaking/vocabulary/culture class, and tomorrow we’ll be talking about communication, eg. jokes, slang, professionalism.
– In the afternoon I’ll be meeting with one of my students from the 7th grade to tutor him in English. He’s such a sweet boy, but his English level is very low and his parents are paying me for regular tutoring. It’s great to have some extra income.
– Every Tuesday evening I have rehearsal with my choir, the Göttinger Stadtkantorei. Joining this group was definitely the best decision that I’ve made towards helping myself get settled here. Over the past two months, this group has provided me with opportunities such as: a weekend rehearsal retreat in the Harz Mountains; a concert tour to England; singing in the gorgeous Jacobikirche with a full orchestra; and frequent parties and gatherings. I feel very much like I belong to a community and it’s such a nice way to meet people.

Mittwoch

– I have work from 9:30 am-1:00 pm, which is quite nice. I like that it’s more than just one class, but I don’t need to get up early.
– Another installment of my new writing class takes place on Wednesday.
– This week is an exception, but usually I have another commitment once or twice a week. One of my greatest concerns about being in Germany for a year was the lack of a piano – as a music graduate and piano major, it has been such a vital part of my life for the past five years and I was dreading being without it. Thankfully, I met a woman in my choir who invites me regularly to her home to practice on her grand piano. Her husband died last year and no one plays it anymore, so I think we both benefit. We chat and have tea together, and then I play for a couple of hours.

Donnerstag

– This is my longest day. I have classes from 7:50 am-11:30 am, then a break, and then in the afternoon I run an English club, alongside my mentor teacher. We have about 15 students, so we’ve split the group to make it more manageable.
– I usually meet with my second language tandem partner on Thursday. He has a Japanese girlfriend with whom he only speaks English, so he’s highly motivated to improve his speaking.
– This week, however, I have to miss all of these activities in order to travel to Braunschweig for a meeting with the PAD and other language assistants from this area. There are 10 assistants in the Göttingen area, and some of them have become my close friends. We see each other several times a week, generally, so I’m excited for us all to travel to Braunschweig together and have a day out.

Freitag

– I spend Fridays with my mentor teacher at school. We’re there from 7:50 am-1:00 pm, and then I’m free for the weekend. Feierabend!

Wochenende

– Every weekend I get up to something new. Last weekend I was in Hannover for a night and hung out with a group of language assistants who live there, before coming back to Göttingen for my choir concert. Yesterday I went hiking in the Harz Mountains with two American assistants and our German friend Stefan, and today I’m going to a football match with some friends. Other highlights have included trips to Bremen, Stuttgart, and Hamburg; visiting the Marienburg Castle near Hannover; the aforementioned choir trips to the Harz and to England; and many other things closer to home, like the symphony, going dancing, potlucks with friends, bicycling around Göttingen, cooking with my German roommate, walking in the forest at the edge of town or around the old town ramparts, and many, many coffees in cafes.

I get a bit homesick every so often, but I have a really good support network here and I feel comfortable and content in Germany. I’m thrilled about the beginning of the Advent season here and I’m thoroughly enjoying the Christmas preparations – although I could do without the groups of lads bellowing drinking songs as they walk past my house coming back from the Christmas market. Until next time, mach’s gut!

As a member of the International Undergraduate Study Program (IUSP) in Marburg, Germany, I am taking part, for eight weeks, in two classes open to all students at the university. The courses I chose to participate in are called “Little Boxes in American Suburbia” and “The Age of Illusion: Visiting the Harry Potter Universe”.

IUSP Students in Marburg

As an IUSP student, we are in Germany only until December, so are unable to finish the courses we are taking, which all run until March. As a result, we are provided with weekly tutorials where we meet with grad students (in groups of one to six undergraduates) to discuss the themes covered in class, as well as to cover the topics that we will be missing later in the year. This is especially useful for students who are taking classes held in German, as these can be very difficult to follow, especially for relative beginners. There are both English and German course options to make study easier for those of us with no previous German background. Courses available to IUSP students include a small selection from each of the following subject areas: American Studies, Business Administration and Economics, Education, English Studies, German Studies, History, Linguistics and Language Technologies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Sociology.

Class Organization in Germany

The German education system is divided into various modules which students must complete to finish their degrees. These modules transfer as credit points, and can be fulfilled by any of a variety of different course offerings. Because of this system, different people in the same class are often taking different modules, and actually require different numbers of credit points from the same class. As a result, requirements for completion of each class vary by student, and in my course “Little Boxes in American Suburbia”, each student is given a different type of project to complete for their grade. This might be a presentation, an oral report, a research paper, or a written response. Such a complex system has resulted in significant confusion in class, and we spent the first hour and a half of class time attempting to account for everyone’s credit points. It didn’t help that because caps in class sizes aren’t required, almost half the class was sitting on windowsills around the too-small classroom.

Visiting the Harry Potter Universe

In my course on Harry Potter, we were required to pass a test just to remain in the class. Since Harry Potter is such a popular series, the professor wanted to ensure that the entire cohort had a strong understanding of the books, and hadn’t only seen the movies, thus allowing for assumptions about the base level of knowledge in the group. The test was something similar to a Facebook quiz on Harry Potter minutiae, except that it wasn’t multiple choice and so was very difficult to complete. Our professor even had to lower the pass threshold to 15/35 questions in order to have enough students left in the class! And class discussion is definitely very interesting. We’re currently covering how the series fits within the fantasy genre, and will move on to discuss narrative techniques, the role of magic, and the series’ cultural legacy. In our tutorials, we cover such additional topics as animal symbolism in the series and the differences between Harry Potter and the fan-made parody A Very Potter Musical.