Celebrations In Berlin!
Today is International Women’s Day, so in Berlin, many stores are closed and no one has school. It feels like a Sunday because on Sundays almost everything is closed. On Sundays, most people stay at home, but today there were a ton of people out and about. I followed suit and did not spend the day inside my apartment. The sun was shining and my friends and I went to have a picnic in Mauerpark! Yesterday, we all went to Edeka to buy food, and today we met up to eat, listen to music and attempt to slack line. A lot of people at my university went to women’s marches and protests, and we talked a little bit about International Women’s Day in classes, but for me, it was a day of relaxation. I got to the park early and read and journaled. I am currently following a read the Bible in a year plan, so I read ahead on that. It was warm enough to not wear a jacket, and the park was packed with people of all ages. Most people drank and smoked, but that is very typical for a chill day in Berlin. There was even someone walking up and down the groups of people selling beer out of a box like they do in ballparks in the U.S., which I found to be hilarious. My friends and I ate fresh baked bread and croissants from bakeries with an array of different spreads, and we ate fruit as well. I like to think bread and sugar makes everyone happy. After that, we all sprawled out in the sun on the grass. When we finally were able to move, we ate a cake out of a tin that my friend, Becca, won in class, and then we packed up and went to find trees to set up Seth’s slack line. I found out that I am horrible, but I am now determined to get better. After the sunset, and it became cold, we all headed back to the S-Bahn station and parted ways.
Today isn’t the only celebration this week. My birthday is also tomorrow! I am really excited to have my birthday here. I think it will be pretty chill. My host says I should go to a club because they are now open, but I don’t think that is going to happen. My friends might go just once some time to see what it is like, but I don’t think I will because I know it’s not going to be my scene, and I’ll want to go home early. I think this weekend, my friends and I are going to either each buy a bottle of wine and try them together while watching a movie or the Great British Baking Show, or we are going to go out to eat either Döner or Currywurst and then go to a bar we really like called Que Pasa. I think I am also going to buy an apricot pavlova from a bakery near my house as my birthday cake. I sadly have a test tomorrow, but hopefully, it will go well. My plans tomorrow are to call a bunch of my friends and family, so my evening will be very busy because of the seven-hour time difference. I really like celebrating things in Berlin, because it feels like there is a lot that you can do. I can’t wait to celebrate Easter here. I think it is really fun to see the differences in how Americans celebrate versus Germans.
Image 1- This is the currywurst we had for Jada’s birthday, two weeks before mine.
Image 2- This was the picnic we ate at Mauerpark.
Image 3- This is all of us enjoying the day and the food at Mauerpark.
Seashore Studies
I am attending the University of Limerick. I even have a “jumper” to prove it! (I would call it a sweatshirt.) While I’m here, I’m taking four “modules” (what we call “classes,” they call “modules”) which are Understanding Young People and How They Learn, Ecology, Inclusive Education 2: Special Educational Needs, and Teacher as Professional. Each one has a Martin Luther College equivalent. I get to see the difference between first year, second year, third year, and fourth year university students in my modules since each module is for a different level.
- Understanding Young People and How They Learn (Year 1) = Psychology of Learning at Martin Luther College
- Ecology (Year 2) = Fundamentals of Ecology at Martin Luther College
- Inclusive Education 2: Special Educational Needs (Year 3) = Educating the Exceptional Learner at Martin Luther College
- Teacher as Professional (Year 4) = Interpersonal Communications at Martin Luther College
My favorite is Ecology. The first four weeks, we learned about the seashore. Now, we are on to talking about freshwater. Our last unit will be on terrestrial ecology. I have learned a lot about the seashore. It is fun to be able to identity different types of seaweed, periwinkles, and lichens.
None of my modules have cumulative final exams. Only one of them even has exams. I have three assignments, three exams, two presentations, a poster, an annotated bibliography, a paper, and a reflection. Of course there are lectures, labs, and tutorials, but as far as graded material, there is very little. Let me break down what I do for each class.
Understanding Young People and How They Learn
- Two online lectures per week, each are usually under 50 minutes and recorded
- One 2 hour tutorial per week
- A paper worth 100% of my grade due in April
Ecology
- Two in-person lectures per week, each are a full 50 minutes
- One 2 hour lab per week
- Three assignments, each is worth 15% of my grade. I just finished the seashore assignment. It was 10 questions and it took me 3 hours.
- Three exams, one for each topic, each worth 15% of my grade
- A group presentation on the seashore, worth 10% of my grade
Inclusive Education 2: Special Educational Needs
- One online lecture, usually under 50 minutes, live and recorded
- One 2 hour tutorial per week
- Videos to supplement the class, usually interviews with people who have special needs or work in schools with people with special needs. (Don’t worry, I have been watching all of them.)
- An annotated bibliography worth 60% of my grade due in April
- A poster about IEPs (Individual Education Plan), worth 40% of my grade
Teacher as Professional
- One online lecture per week, usually under 50 minutes, live and recorded most of the time
- One 2 hour tutorial per week
- 12 minute group presentation worth 40% of my grade due in April
- Individual reflection worth 60% of my grade due in April
Lectures are where much of the information is presented. Labs so far have been identifying organisms. Tutorials are where the material from the lecture is talked about and where a lot of group work happens.
I like how my schedule is laid out. It is not called a schedule here. It is a timetable. On Mondays, I have time to clean, grocery shop, and do my laundry, before going to Ecology lecture. Tuesdays are busy with two lectures in the morning and two tutorials in the afternoon. Wednesday is less busy with only one lecture in the morning and a lecture and a tutorial in the afternoon. Thursday, I only have Ecology lab in the morning. On Friday, I have one online lecture. During the week, I watch my lectures and do whatever work was asked of me to do before each tutorial. Then I plan out when to work on everything due in April. My weekends are free to adventure.
A really quick science lesson:
Pictured above are four different seaweeds which are all classified as kelps. The pictures are not the greatest so I encourage you to look up what each looks like after learning a little about them.
The first seaweed is Saccorhiza polyschides. It is sometimes referred to as Sea Hedgehog because the holdfast (the part that keeps the seaweed anchored to a rock) looks like a hedgehog. It is round with spikes on it. The part of seaweed that looks like a leaf is called a frond. The frond on Saccorhiza polyschides is flat and looks like fingers.
The second seaweed pictured is Laminaria digitata. It can be referred to as Oarweed or Strapweed. The holdfast looks like a hand holding on the rocks. The frond is similar to Saccorhiza polyschides. It is flat and looks like fingers.
The third seaweed pictured is Laminaria saccharina. It’s common name is the Sugar Kelp. The holdfast is similar to Laminaria digitata. It looks like a hand holding on to the rocks. The frond of Laminaria saccharina looks like what I imagine seaweed to look like. It is flat and wrinkled.
The last seaweed picture is Himanthalia elongata. It is commonly referred to as Spaghetti Weed. The holdfast is often called a coin. It looks like a Shrek ear. The fronds are long and thin like spaghetti noodles.
I hope you were able to learn a little about what my life at the University of Limerick is like, and learn about seaweed. Go impress your friends with your new knowledge of Spaghetti Weed.
Putting the Study in Study Abroad
Academics in England are very different from my previous college experience. I am currently taking three classes, and a month and a half in, I still haven’t had any graded assignments. At MLC, our grades are made up of numerous small daily assignments and projects, as well as a midterm and a final. This means that I have at least a couple of hours of homework per day. In the UK and most of Europe, grades are calculated based on only a few assignments. Sometimes there is only one: a final exam. Because I am taking all literature classes, I have one big essay due at the end of the semester for each class. The only daily assignments I have are assigned readings, and we are expected to do our own supplementary readings to be ready to discuss in class.
So far, I am very much enjoying this format. As a study abroad student, I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing homework, so I am fine with not having so many daily assignments. There is also a lot of freedom in what I can focus on with my reading. Besides the core text, I can read critical sources that I am interested in and take it where I want it to go.
UK students that I have spoken to seem to find it strange that American universities require so many more daily assignments. From their point of view, college students are adults, and they shouldn’t need to be babied and monitored as much as high schoolers would. For the most part, I agree. However, I can see how some students find it really hard to be motivated when there is so little structure.
Another difference is my class schedule. Fortunately, my classes are almost entirely in person. Unlike my classes in the US, which met twice or three times per week for fifty minutes, my classes here meet only once per week. My classes last two or three hours. It was definitely an adjustment! We usually get a coffee break in the middle, but by the end, it can get a little hard to focus.
My three classes are Victorian Literature, Classical Children’s Literature, and Shakespeare. My favorite is definitely my Shakespeare class because it includes outings to live performances of the plays we are studying. We discuss the staging, costumes, and creative choices as well as the text itself. It feels like a theatre class mixed with a literature class.
I always get the question: Which is harder? US or UK college? It’s hard to compare the two because they are so different, but I think that US college is harder. However, this doesn’t mean that it is better or I learn more. Time management is definitely harder and the workload is much heavier. But I am astounded by how much I have learned already in my UK classes even with the lack of daily work.
A happy coincidence is that seeing such a different system has opened my eyes and given me lots of ideas for my future classroom. Each person has their own structure that they prefer, but learning can happen either way.
Balancing Life and School
Academics and university life is much different in Germany than in America. I am currently taking two classes from MLC and two from FU-BEST. The ones I am taking here are Intensive German B2/B3 and Art and Dictatorship. There are not many classes targeted towards teaching because many of the students are going into Economics, Law, Political Science, or Art. Even though I am not taking any teaching theory classes, I hope to be able to learn something from how the teachers here teach. You are not allowed to use your computer for notes in class unless you have a learning disability. I never use my computer at school, and I only use it for homework. For German, all my homework and notes are on paper. For my Art class, all of my notes are on paper, and my assignments are online.
We have Art and Dictatorship only once a week for three hours. On the first day of class, I learned something that really stressed me out at first. Our teacher makes our assignments very open-ended, in the sense that we don’t have a rubric or any specific requirements besides formatting. For reading responses, he lets us write whatever we want and for our presentations as long as it fits under the topic title. I am doing my first presentation tonight (2/22/22). The teachers do not like just having us stand up front and talk; they like us to have interactive elements, which makes it much more enjoyable for the audience and the presenter.
My German class is very intense. We meet four days a week for three hours each day. All of the class is spoken in German, and we have a lot of discussions. This is especially challenging for me because I’m not great at speaking German, but it is definitely helping me grow. We have to write a paper and do two presentations in German. My first one is this Thursday (2/24/22). I am hoping to come out of this class as a more well-rounded German speaker.
Classes here also have a lot of days when we spend the class period at a historic site or a museum. I have gone on an excursion to the Musée Futurium for my German class. I have an excursion to the Jewish Museum in Berlin and Topography of Terror next week for my Art and Dictatorship class. It also may seem that three hours is a long time to have class, but we get a fifteen-minute break halfway through German, and we get a ten-minute break every thirty minutes for my Art and Dictatorship class. During these breaks, we open the windows, talk, walk around outside; many people smoke or get coffee from a vending machine or the cafeteria (Mensa). After classes, no one hangs around campus. One of the directors of FU-BEST told us the general attitude towards school is more like going to work and leaving rather than hanging around and living on campus. The library closes at 4 pm every day, so my friends and I study on Tuesdays in between classes there. After classes, there is nothing really to do on campus, so we either go to a coffee shop to study or head back to our apartments. It is nice to go home at 12 almost every day. I have started going to bakeries to pick up something for my lunch on my way to my apartment. I have to study for a few hours, and then I’m done with my school stuff for the day. It feels like I am barely in school here, which makes it easy to be flexible with my days. I definitely feel very free with how I balance my life and school.
2. This is me and some friends from my German class on an excursion to the Futurium.
3. This is me and my friends spending time in the library in between our Tuesday morning and evening classes.
My flat
University accommodation in the United Kingdom is very different from what I am used to. I live in a flat with 5 other study abroad students. We share a kitchen and a bathroom, but all have our own separate bedrooms. The common areas in our flat are cleaned each day and deep cleaned once a week. I am lucky in that my accommodation is on campus; most days my walk to class is only about 5 minutes. I’m told that at most of the bigger universities in London, student may have to commute up to 40 minutes for their classes!
The best part about our flat is the people in it. 4 of us are from various places around the United States, one is from Puerto Rico, and one is from Ecuador. We get along extremely well. All being study abroad students, I think we automatically have similar goals. I always have someone to explore the city with or just to talk if it gets hard. We all know exactly what each other are going through. At first, I was disappointed that I wasn’t with local students, but now I’m glad. I want to meet Brits, of course, but living with them would have been difficult.
Having shared a room my whole life, I was apprehensive about being alone in my own room, but I really love it. It is small, which makes it cozy, and more than big enough for all my stuff. A big difference is that I have a sink in my room. I don’t know why this isn’t standard at American universities, because it is a total game changer. I can wash my hands, fill my water bottle, and even wash my hair without leaving my room!
Some of my flatmates were a bit put off at first by our living conditions. The rooms are clean, but very much not new. They have obviously been lived in by many other students before us. Since all the buildings are so old here, they are not as nice as we are used to, but they have their own charm. We did our best to make it feel like home. We are responsible for buying our own toilet paper, dish soap, dish towels, and other things. This was a bit of a shock at first when we arrived, but we soon created a system to make sure we contribute equally.
By far the biggest difference in the way I am living in London versus the way I lived at MLC is the food. Here, I do all my own grocery shopping and cooking. A meal plan that applies to the various cafés on campus is available, but it really isn’t worth the money. Plus, I love to cook! It has been such an adventure figuring out what to buy and what I can make that both tastes good and is healthy. So far the stars are pasta and frozen veggie burgers. My favorite part of the day is around 6 or 7 pm when all my flatmates find their way to the kitchen to make dinner. We end up sticking around in there for hours: eating, playing cards, and talking about our days. I feel like a part of a family.