Study Abroad

After my internship in Stuttgart with Daimler-Chrysler, I traveled to Munich to begin my studies at the Technical University of Munich. Before school started in mid-April, I took part in the two-week long orientation program for international students, TUMI. I met many new and interesting people from all over the world. I quickly found that everyone wanted to practice their English skills, especially people from Scandinavian countries. Through the program, we were instructed on how to deal with many of the aspects of being a foreigner in Germany, such as residency permits and health care. Since I needed German health care and a bank account for Daimler-Chrysler, I already knew the entire process. The group had many excursions to local and regional events that were quite entertaining such as going to see theatrical performances and hiking in though the mountains. I found our hiking excursion to Langries, a small city on the base of the Alps, to be a very eye-opening experience. The journey was simply breath taking. The two-week orientations program was also very beneficial to the introduction of the German higher education system. The orientation program told us that the system is very different from that in America. We soon discovered that what we were told was an understatement.

School

The German way of thinking is that there is no homework, no midterms, and no quizzes. At first, I was completely shocked at this, coming from the University of Illinois, where I would be happy if I had nothing to do for on any given night. I thought that it was a miracle that their school had no homework, but I found out that it was misleading. The German education system only works if you apply yourself to learn the material on your own. Since there is no homework, it was often needed to supplement lectures with doing exercises from books recommended by the professors. It was also necessary to read through the lecture notes and any books a few times to understand the material when it was in German. I found it very hard at first to understand not only the lectures, but also the lecture notes and course books. Sitting through lectures was sometimes difficult for me because it was difficult to follow what message the professors were trying to send. As time went on and I became more used to the way things were done, it became much easier to understand the content of the courses. At the end of the semester, each class had a final, the only test which carried the entire semester grade. My tests were fairly stressful, but I did reasonably well on them. Here is the one tip I learned which I wish I would have known before I took finals: Take any test orally if you have the chance. I cannot stress that enough now that I have returned. The reason behind it is that professors understand that German is a difficult language. If an international student puts forth effort and tries to understand as much material as possible, they will let the student pass their class. If you take the test written, it is much easier to simply let the student fail.

I took a total of five classes over the semester. Two were actually taught in English, Multimedia Communications and Image and Video Compression. They were fairly easy since they were in English, and I learned a lot of material in both. The two other technical classes, both of which taught in German, were Kommunikationsnetz 2 (Communications Networks 2) and Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion 2 (Man-Machine-Interaction 2). Communications Networks 2 was a very difficult class to take because students first need to take Communications Networks 1 to understand the material in the second class. I did not have access to take this course because it was not offered in the spring. Unfortunately, one of the main differences of the German system is the unavailability of certain classes in the Winter Semester versus the Spring Semester. Many classes are only offered in one semester or the other. Man-Machine-Interaction was a very interesting class, and students did not necessarily need to take the first test to be capable of understanding the material. Finally, I took the highest level of German as a foreign language, Deutsch als Fremdsprache 2B. In that class, we learned a lot of information about other cultures as well as about German culture, all while learning German grammar, vocabulary, and many other useful things. The only regret I have is that I did not take more classes. I feel that I could have brought back more technical courses here without adding too much stress abroad. I definitely had a blast and enjoyed every minute of my study abroad experience.