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mothwing
This is my final day at this university. That is SUCH an odd feeling! I will never again have lessons here, in these rooms, with these professors.
A week, then four exams, and then I will never be a student again at this university.
And then back to Germany.
I do not know whether it is good or bad. The University at home is absolutely terrible. They are unorganised, they are going to instate study fees, but the quality of teaching at this university does not merit these fees at all. It is strange, but with the possibly sole exception of our very own rather excellent cafeteria at home, everything at this university is better than at home. Everything.
I am definitely planning to go back for a Post Grad course to one of the British Unis if it's possible.... Maybe I should do a Bachelor's degree after all? Nahhh. Whatever I do in Hamburg internationally counts as a Bachelor, even though the level equals a Master.
Even first year students at this uni know much more about English literature than we learn at home - but then, is that true? Our system is just so different from this here.
At home, you can chose what you want to learn something about, here, you have to attend lectures with a preset syllabus. But then, neither here nor at home you are forced to familiarise yourself with everything there is on the syllabus, you can choose and write your essay on texts of your choice. Of course, if I see courses like the one we did at home on Postmodern Literature and Gothic novels, they worked much better than any lecture might, but then, the person teaching them is the best Professor we have. The others are very rambling and full of idiots, on both sides of the desk. Seriously!
Most people in those courses have no intention of reading the pre-set texts for the course, because they can choose what to answer on in their paper. Bad. On the other hand, the same happens here, but this phenomenon is not as wide-spread. You have more lessons here in one course, but you only take a maximum of four courses here.
At home, most people have 20 hours of lessons per semester - the same amount you have here if you take four courses - but these courses at home only have two hours per lesson. This means that the amount of reading is FAR higher at home. I found it quite easy here, to be honest, to read everything on the lists. At home? Last semester, I had amounts of a thousand pages per week. Manageable, but it also meant I could not really prepare them as thoroughly. Here, it is down to… maybe a couple of hundred and a poem.
Wow, obscene masses. It does not really seem to get more for the higher levels, and this means you have plenty of time to really immerse yourself in the texts you are reading when at home, in the GoNo course, we very often had to speed read the texts because we learnt it was going to be the first five hundred pages of the Mysteries of Udolpho next week or something.
Most people in those courses have no intention of reading the pre-set texts for the course, because they can choose what to answer on in their paper. Bad. On the other hand, the same happens here, but this phenomenon is not as wide-spread. You have more lessons here in one course, but you only take a maximum of four courses here.
At home, most people have 20 hours of lessons per semester - the same amount you have here if you take four courses - but these courses at home only have two hours per lesson. This means that the amount of reading is FAR higher at home. I found it quite easy here, to be honest, to read everything on the lists. At home? Last semester, I had amounts of a thousand pages per week. Manageable, but it also meant I could not really prepare them as thoroughly. Here, it is down to… maybe a couple of hundred and a poem.
Wow, obscene masses. It does not really seem to get more for the higher levels, and this means you have plenty of time to really immerse yourself in the texts you are reading when at home, in the GoNo course, we very often had to speed read the texts because we learnt it was going to be the first five hundred pages of the Mysteries of Udolpho next week or something.
And at home? Magister paper. Finding a topic, that is. Terrible. But then, there are bright sides to everything. Friends, Family, Home internet connection, TV, my books and, most important of all, my cat. Still... No Crocky, no beautiful uni, no great professors, no seminars with about ten people in them, max. Sigh.
