Jens, Insa, Verena with Benjamin Rush
It was by coincidence that this little get-together at Dickinson happened on March 17, 2012, which made it all the more fun!
Bremen-in-Dickinson
Academic Differences Between Dickinson and Uni Bremen.
While studying abroad at a different university, definite differences are apparent. Before coming to Uni Bremen, I expected classes to be fairly similar to Dickinson but just larger. I soon came to realize that this was not the only difference. First, let me list all of the academic differences I have noticed between Uni Bremen and Dickinson and then I will explain each one:
1. The class size
2. The students ages
3. The “homework” and graded “assignments”
4. Semester time-frame
5. Grading system
6. The professors
The class size, at Dickinson, will not exceed 60 students and it is not uncommon for a class to have only 5 students. At Uni Bremen; however, the class size is much larger on average. To have a class with less than 20 students is not as common as having a class with 100+ students. My largest class had about 150 students. And on that note, this class of 150 or so students were composed of 4 students in their 20s and the rest of the students were over 70 years of age. To have older adults as students is not uncommon. Thirdly, the assignments for classes at Uni Bremen have a different expectation than those given at Dickinson. At Uni Bremen, the assignments given throughout the semester are typically readings listed on the syllabus. These readings will either be posted online or the student must go to a local bookstore. These readings are not mandatory, but an aid. If the class consists of discussion then reading the listed assignment(s) is recommended but again not mandatory like Dickinson. The actual graded assignments do not come until the end of the semester as one large grade. This one grade is what the student will receive for the class. This grade can either be a test, a project, an oral presentation, or a 10-15 page paper depending on the professor. As for the actual grades, they are not based off of a “A, B, C, D, F” system, but rather a point system. This point system is 1-5 in which a 1 is a perfect grade and a 5 is failing. The professors will be understanding to those who are international students, but it is very rare for professors at a German university, such as Uni Bremen, to know the names of the students. This is mainly due to the fact that most classes have over 50 students, but also because the student-professor relationship does not work at Uni Bremen like it does at Dickinson. Another academic difference between Dickinson and Uni Bremen is attendance. Unless professors at Uni Bremen take attendance and make it an important issue to not miss classes, attendance is not taken as seriously as it is at Dickinson. Nevertheless, going to class is important! …but taken lightly by the majority of students. For one of my classes – that had no attendance requirement – there was a student who came to the last day to take the final exam… This student did not come to a single day of class throughout the semester. And lastly, as for the semester, the first semester (winter semester) begins late October/early November and ends in February as opposed to late August to December.
To those of you who find the differences to be intimidating, please do not be alarmed! These differences are very easy to adjust to ;-).
Beck’s Brewery Tour
Beer is a staple of any social gathering or meal in Germany but the way it is made is a mystery to many people. The Dickinson in Bremen program recently took a tour of the Beck’s Brewery right here in Bremen to discover more about this important and delicious drink. We first learned that Beck’s is not only the most popular beer here in Bremen but that it is also Germany’s largest export beer. It can be found in every corner of the globe. The next part of the tour took us through the process of beer production; from harvesting the hops to bottling and packaging the product. Finally, we were able to sample various types of beer produced at the Beck’s brewery. They had us guess whether the beer was Beck’s, Alcohol-free Beck’s, or Haake Beck, a beer produced by Beck’s but only served in Northern Germany. The Dickinson crew guessed correctly with only 4+ months of drinking Beck’s and Haake Beck under our belt. To our surprise, we were not rewarded with a lifetime supply of beer.
The Dickinson-in-Bremen group at the Brewery.
New Year’s Eve in Bremen
With all other Dickinson students having flown the Bremen-coop, I was left to experience New Year’s Eve in Bremen by myself. Fortunately I had two great Bremen-natives, Verena M. and Christine M. to show me the ropes of the quirky German New Year’s traditions. Even before arriving at Verena’s apartment in the Neustadt in the evening, I heard loud cracking and popping sounds all day in my usually quiet neighborhood; I should have realized that that was only a small sign of the firework enthusiasm I would later experience that evening.
Much like the yearly holiday showings of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story,” Germans enjoy watching a short film titled, “Dinner for One” or “Der. 90. Geburtstag” on New Year’s Eve. Afterwards we ate the traditional jelly-donuts ‘Berliners’ and also did the traditional ‘lead pouring’ called ‘Bleigießen.’ This process involves melting lead shapes on a spoon over a candle, pouring the liquid into a pot of cold water and then telling fortunes from the shapes formed in the water.
We then decided to brave the streets to watch the fireworks along the Weser River. Words cannot describe how chaotic and wild everything was. Little kids were handed rockets to set off, groups would walk along and toss fire-crackers in the streets and at cars driving by, and the cracks, pops and whistles were so deafening that it almost felt like I was in a war-zone. Unlike the big city-organized firework displays one finds in the United States, Germans buy and set off their own fireworks. Verena informed me that fireworks are only available during the few days before New Year’s and that otherwise you can’t find them in Germany, which helps account for their general pyro-enthusiasm. After lighting our own rather tame sparklers and toasting the New Year with some champagne, we managed to find our way back home through the smoke-filled streets. I hope to bring back some of the German traditions I learned!
Different….
by Gwyneth van Son ’13
What?! We have to feed ourselves?!
Nope, no three meals a day at the cafeteria, no maintenance staff, and no campus life living. This, my friends, is as close to the real world as I ever care to get. Here at the Bremen program we have no host families, but rather live in apartments owned by the university and receive a stipend (due to the lack of an all you can eat buffet). However, because I so love to be different, I live in a private apartment with Verena, a German TA in 2010-2011. Verena and I live in the Neustadt, which is about a 30-minute tram ride away from the University of Bremen (a very long way away by Dickinson standards). There are, however, many advantages to where we live; we are not very far from the inner city and we walk one minute to both the grocery store and the tram stop. Our building is very much the typical old single family Bremen townhouse renovated into apartments. It has three stories, a basement, balconies, a garden in the back and very high ceilings. The one thing that makes our building standout is that it is bright pink with a mural of water lilies painted on the front.
Because I decided to live in a private apartment that meant I needed to purchase a few things, such as a bed. Two highly successful trips to Ikea were made, one with Verena and one with Jens. I now feel I can truthfully say I know my way quite well around the Ikea store, if a guided tour is requested I am more then happy to oblige. I managed to find a great bed on Bremen’s much less creepy version of Craig’s list, and due to Jens it was speedily dismantled, transported, and rebuilt.
My living situation in Bremen may be completely different from that at Dickinson, but the one thing they have in common is that there is always something to be done in terms of decoration. Even after I move out of a room I think of how I could have decorated it differently, and I know with my apartment here it will be just the same. After living in a dorm for the last two years I enjoy cooking for myself, cleaning the apartment and knowing no one except Verena or I will come in and leave dirty dishes in the sink, as well as the lack of constant loud music. Our landlords, who live above us, are thankfully not into blasting music so loud that I worry for their future ability to hear. I am sure, however, that after eleven months of real life living I will welcome back dorm life and the caf with wide open arms, but until then I am perfectly content to live the life of a big kid.
Fröhlichen Nikolaus
‘Der Nikolaus’ has already found his way to the Dickinson Room:
Dickinson connects
Dickinson connects, even beyond school!
from left: Caitlin, Jens, Insa
Caitlin Hahn ’08 spent her year abroad in Bremen and – after graduating – came back to Germany with a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Hamburg. She decided to stay in Germany and enrolled in an applied literature degree course at Free University in Berlin. Insa Kohler (TA ’10) and Jens Schröder (TA ’07) studied at Uni Bremen and only heard about Caitlin through others. Now that Insa is enrolled in the same degree course at FU Berlin as Caitlin, they both met for the first time in person. So, Jens finally took the chance to visit them both while attending a conference in Berlin.
Fair trade!
July King ’12 at UTAMTSI’s stand in Baltimore
In June, Prof. Antje Pfannkuchen (German Department), former exchange student Julie King ’12 and Jens Schröder (Program Coordinator) visited the sustainable coffee company UTAMTSI outside Bremen (see blog entry below). The company is already engaged in educating Dickinson students in sustainable coffee production and its fair distribution in Cameroon. Back in June, both sides expressed their wish to cooperate more closely together and share expertise and knowledge about sustainable planting methods. Now, a first step is accomplished: Morin Fobissie Kamga, one of the founders of UTAMTSI, visited Dickinson this week and is now in Baltimore attending a conference about sustainable food production. At the conference, Morin is supported by – yes – Julie King. The triangle Bremen-Cameroon-Dickinson works in a true Dickinson spirit: globally and sustainably!
But there is more: in the same week, Bremen was awarded the title “Germany’s Capitol of Fair Trade”, recognizing Bremen’s efforts to promote fair trade projects across the city. Find the newspaper article here (in German):
Tschüss…
by Gaven Trinidad, ’12
“Touch is very important in life. It’s all we have in trying to reach out to another person.” Tennessee Williams
What people from home had forgotten to tell me is that there is an end to a study abroad experience. Without a doubt, I knew that I would have to return to Dickinson College and reunite with my family after graduation while I search for work in my intended career, but never had I expected that saying goodbye to Germany would be so difficult. I even had to say goodbye to Harry Potter, and that was depressing enough (coincidentally, the last film in the franchise was released this past weekend, which also meant an end to my childhood).
Last week was the final week of formal classes at Universität Bremen, and the Dickinson family had already started to return back to the United States; the week before starting with Ethan’s departure. By next week more than half of the Dickinson students would have returned home (Becky, Anne, Sam, and Mel). The last person to return home would be me on August 9th. Then I guess I’m the most fitting person to write this “goodbye” blog entry.
The experience of studying abroad in Germany was more than what I had anticipated. Not only did I study, work, and immerse myself blindly into this beautiful culture through its art and history, but also I made life-long friends along the way. The first was my study buddy, Cara, who helped me practice my conversational skills. We’ve partied and studied together. We would relish in our love for theater and joke about our futures as actors. Another good friend was Lisa, who was always around for good advice and a beautiful model pose for every picture we had taken together. Maria and Katalina, who always there for a good laugh, were two other good friends I had from the university. I called these four girls my “Ruhrgebiet Girls” because they all came from either Essen or Dortmund. And the person who I would miss probably the most would be my now ex-boyfriend, Sebastian, who will begin his studies in theater and psychology at a university.
What made our goodbyes tragic seemed to be the unspoken question: When will be the next time we will physically see each other? Hug each other? Laugh with/at each other? And in a weird way, I felt a bit like Harry Potter, standing on a platform wat-ching the Hogwarts Express leave Kings Cross Station. It was another lesson about being an adult. I had to learn to say goodbye and continue on with life armed with the joyous me-mories I had gained. Hugging them and saying goodbye was not as painful as I had feared.
Germany, you are a beautiful country with a rich history, art, and language. The people were beautiful, inside and out, and I’m happy to have lived in the beautiful city of Bremen. Now I just need some time to clean my apartment, pack my bags, finish my Hausarbeiten, and return to life as a student at Dickinson College.
New Master Agreements
Dickinson signed three new Master’s Agreements with the Department of Language and Literary Studies.
In the presence of Dr. Uwe Spörl (Uni Bremen), Dr. Antje Pfannkuchen and Dr. Janine Ludwig (both Dickinson College), the new contract was signed adding “Germanistik”, “Language Science” and “Transnational Literary Studies” to the existing portfolio of Master’s programs with special access for Dickinson alumni.
from left to right: Dr. Janine Ludwig (DC), Dr. Uwe Spörl (Uni Bremen) and Dr. Antje Pfannkuchen (DC)