I’ve decided that in the German University system, students are viewed as an unfortunate side effect of the academic process.
This may also be true in the US, but at least there we are also a major source of revenue.
In Germany, however, many institutions of higher education charge no tuition. True, in most places there is a nominal fee per semester (in Göttingen I have to pay €93 plus some odd change) and many schools are considering going over to a tuition-based system (albeit for much less money than, say, Kenyon College.) But that hasn’t happened yet, and as a rule, students here can get a valuable education very cheaply.
There are trade-offs, however. My recent struggles with obtaining a student ID are a case in point. Offices are understaffed and, by and large, overworked. Every single semester, 25,000 people have to use one of four picture-taking terminals and stand in one line to receive a new, updated ID card. (That’s right, I have to go through this process again next semester.)
Maybe that’s a big school/little school thing, too. And yet, something tells me there’s more to it.
A personal academic advisor is a foreign concept. No wonder it sometimes takes people 6 or 7 years to get through undergrad.
And then there’s signing up for classes. Yes, I finally found a couple that seem interesting. And yes, I missed the first week’s worth due to minor preoccupations like getting my life in order.
On one side of the coin, that’s not really a problem. To register for a class, you just go. If you pass the final exam, the professor hands you what is basically a receipt and when you have enough of the right ones for a particular course of study you can graduate. A prof can kick you out for bad attendance, but with lectures of 100-200 people you’re unlikely to get caught skipping a few times.
On the other side, you’d think it would be hard to hide a gigantic lecture hall in a city of this size. And you’d be wrong. My potential “Allgemeine Entwicklungs- und Zellbiologie” course (that’s general developmental and cell bio) is held twice a week. So far after a few hours with a map, an address, my bike, and a heart full of hope, I’ve only managed to find one of the two lecture halls in which it is held. Wednesday morning in the back corner of the geology building, no problem… but as for Monday? I think I found the right street, but I might just have to pray that I’ll get shuffled into the right hall with the flow of traffic. Whatever happened to labeling buildings? Floor plans? Actually useful online maps?
The other course I’m interested in is Neurosciences Vorlesung (neuro lecture) which is held in English through the international graduate program. An intro level grad course? In my native tongue, no less? Sounds just about right! Today I woke up early and tried to get into the class. For this one I had it all planned out: scoped the locale the day before, and everything. What could go wrong?
So I showed up, all excited to finally get my stuff in order and have my very first graduate level class… and the hall is empty. Another student, a psych major from Kassel, was there for the same reason. The building secretary (luckily, the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine building has a secretary!) was as mystified as we were. It’s a team-taught course, so she called one of the lecturers on behalf of the other student. (At this point, I’m just observing, since I’m even more scared of talking on the phone in German than I am of talking in German generally.) Apparently it caps out at 20 people and the course is already closed.
Bis schade. Dejectedly, I make my way to the lab and tell Hermann the story. He’s mystified too… apparently he taught a corollary tutorial for this very course last year, and it’s never been capped before. He advised me to check the seminar room back at the MPI building in case it’s going on there, and indicated that my case might be more viable since I’m only here for a year, I’m technically a bio major, and for gosh sakes I have a Fulbright.
So back, said hi to the secretary, got mildly lost again looking for the (of course empty) seminar room… and at this point I tell myself, eh, screw it, let’s talk on the phone in German.
Back to helpful secretary, and I ask if she’ll call for me. Apparently I didn’t make it very clear who I wanted to call, and she got the idea that some other prof whom she didn’t know very well was involved in the course by dint of his hanging around. So she dialed him up and handed me the phone. I pled my case, apologized for the language errors, and asked what to do next. He was very nice. No, your German isn’t that bad at all… but I’m not sure what I can do to help. I hand the phone back, confused, and try to explain that I wanted to call the other guy who apparently has somethig to do with the class. Didn’t quite come across, and the secretary informs the nice random guy on the phone that maybe we can try the exchange again in English. Sigh. Just to make sure, I ask again, in English, if he knows how I can get into the course. He has no idea, he’s just some biochemist.
So no go. But I was persistent. Please, could you call the professor the other girl spoke with? This time it worked, and soon I was yet again explaining myself auf Deutsch. The course is still technically closed… but since you’re an international student, and you have a grant… send me a short e-mail and I’ll see what I can do.
Woohoo! Profuse thanks, and I hung up the phone.
Umm… who is this guy, again? And where can I find his e-mail address?
Actually I’m starting to get the hang of the Uni website, and I think I looked the right guy up. Hopefully by next week I’ll know whether or not I can join the class… and maybe even where and when it actually meets!
I also find out tomorrow what level of Deutschkurs I get to take at the Lektorat. After poor Andrew’s story about getting busted all the way back down to Grundstufe (highest frickin’ functioning Grundstufe student I ever met!) I have my doubts. I suspect that the levels aren’t at all equivalent across different Bundeslände anyway, so at least that’s a consolation if the same happens to me.
*****
Can we talk about writing conventions for a minute?
(Yes, that’s rhetorical. I’m fully aware of the irony.)
It has come to my attention rereading some of the posts here that I’m running short on textual markers. Italics can mean, in a single post and sometimes in a single paragraph, any and all of the following: emphasis, inner monologue, quote, poem or song lyric, me speaking German, someone else speaking German. It makes sense to me when I write it, but I have no idea if the contextual backdrop provides significant clarification.
And don’t even get me started on inconsistent verb tenses in narrative. At this point, I’m resigned to the fact that I have a problem. I know it exists, but there’s little or nothing I can do about it.
Oh, and here’s another use for italic script dropping right into my lap… imagined responses from the peanut gallery.
Come now, you’re writing a blog here, not a novella. “Almost” being an English major at Kenyon College is no justification for petty whining over stylistic conventions. When your mother reads this she’ll think you’re being silly… or just weird.
Wow, the peanut gallery is getting personal today.
And yet I do think that there is potential value in an examination of style, even if it is just a blog. I spend enough time online to find stuff that’s really good. Lileks’ “Bleats” for example, are well written and enjoyable. He’s a professional, of course… But I don’t think it’s silly of me to want to emulate decent writing. If only to appease the tiny, curmudgeonly editor inside my head. It’s the least I can do… he has to go have a stiff drink every time I unwittingly switch verb tenses.
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