I hate hate hate the Universität Hamburg

[mothwing]

So they introduced tuition fees this semester: €500.

So there is the additional fee for the ticket, etc. That used to be around €156, in the good old days, does anyone remember those?
A few years ago, those were raised (and we had to pay an additional €50. This was of course greeted with an outcry and a threat that anyone not able to pay would not be readmitted for the next semester.).The reason they gave for the introduction of the raise was that it was an added administrative fee. (To be fair, they could really do with the money. Most of the people working there are complete idiots, maybe more money would attract people who can actually read).

In addition to that, those additional fee has been raised gradually, always for a few euros, and next semester we'll have to pay another ten Euroes, which gives us €242 additional fees PLUS €500 tuition fees = €742.

So, when I started my course it used to be €156, and now it's €742.

Slight difference, no?

That they raised the bloody additional fees the semester we've got to pay tuition fees is absolutely LUDICROUS.

It's obvious that they're going to raise them until we've got to pay €1000 per semester, but even with the €500 there are so many students who have to end their course of studies, and there are no ways of really funding your course of studies. The credits they planned to introduce don't really work for everybody, and our state student support system which never really work that well in the first place doesn't even take the fees into account as far as I know.

In Glasgow, I wouldn't even have MINDED paying the fees because everything was just ... better, and I didn't even have to.
It is also an open secret that close to NOTHING will change after these fees have been paid because they don't go to the department but are used God only knows were.

This place just SUCKS.

Comments

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm scared of the loans as well. Especially looking at the sheer AMOUNTS people end up with.
That is what scares me the most. And some kind of egoism (healthy egoism?) prevents me from doing dept of that kind: Imagine having studied, got your diploma, M.A. or Bachelor and then getting a job. Finally you are free. Free to come home and don't have to continue working because a summary or whatever is due the next day, and also free to travel, buy things, go out often, buy really GOOD clothes and have a hobby that costs a bit more than renting a book from the library....and you are also free to pay of your debt of, what, 5,000 bucks or more you used for your studies?
I bet, this will demolish a lot of the other "frees" I listed.
Perhaps it doesn't and I am just very ignorant, too little informed and pessimistic. But I am also afraid, horribly afraid of that number and also way too "egoistical" to accept that I will, as soon as I start working, have to work for others.

I don't get BaFög either. I am not yet sitting in that "gap" in which the people are trapped who can not pay but are not supported either. But I am close to it and I hope I will, after this semester of "finding myself", 1) know for sure what I want to do, 2) be able to really DO it and 3) end it soon and disencumber my parents and earn my own money.


You know, concerning the number of admitted people in courses.
It seems to me as if the question-of-fault is once again ruining everything. Everybody in this world seems to think and feel in "fault-cathegories" and thus everybody just says "it's not m
y fault, go to xy and ask them" instead of seeing that there are grievances and saying "I am not responsible for it but I see that there has to be done something on it. Please go to XY and tell him about it and let me know how it went. If it does not help, I will see what I can do."
Nobody seems to want to help or feel as if it was a good thing to help making things better because everybody fears that this would result in 1) loads of additional work they don't have to do and 2) will be seen as some kind of "confession of guilt".
Carzy, isn't it? What do you think about that theory?
I think I got it but maybe I only try to explain things to myself that I can't really understand the way I am...

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that "fault" thinking drives me insane as well. I know exactly what you mean! And it's not as though am coming with a moral reproach or anything, I just want to know the reason why the bloody courses are that big. I don't want to tell someone that their immortal souls are endangered or something. This country has a Schuldkomplex. For me, "fault" means something like "responsibility" and doesn't have any moral strings attached, but everyone gets seriously edgy when I use it, so I've taken to use "responsible" instead to try and go around the complex. Doesn't work. :(

Definitely more than 5,000. A friend who studied abroad had a debt of about 30,000 - tuition fees, rent, money for living... great stuff. I'd rather not study, and I'd rather die than not study.

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

30,000....no. way.

I guess people are just not able to see a difference between being responsible and having fault anymore. Or rather: They know the difference but the fact is that whoever is "responsible" as in being major and cognizant also usually is responsible in the sense of accountable, answerable and being held liable for.

Peole just LOVE it to be taken seriously and to be seen as grown-up and mature and therfore also major and cognizant and they love it even more when they somebody wants them to do something because they seem to be "the person" for doing it.
BUT nobody likes, at all, to accept that with every ounce of being grown-up and major and "the person to do something" they are also responsibley and being held liable for their own actions.

People in this country seem to fear it very much.
Sadly, this "pestilence" also affected me but I see it and try to work against it. I am just afraid of making mistakes and letting people down, not more.

Others however are...well, they want to be OH-SO grown-up and being treated like one of the permium adults and mature people the world has ever seen and when they then do a mistake or act up they refuse to accept that they should be in only 1% responsible for anything.
And they often don't do that out of the fear of letting people down but they really believe that they are NOT to be held responsible at all. They REALLY BELIEVE. Can you imagine that?!? ARRRGH!