I am currently in my third week of University classes here in Freiburg and I seem to have fallen back into the rhythm of the whole school thing pretty easily, considering the fact that I actually went 6 months without having a full semester of classes since U of M let out so early for the summer and Germany's classes didn't start until the end of October. I must admit it's kind of strange not having any technical classes. No math, no science, just literature, grammar, and history. It's different but still enjoyable.
My classes:
The USA in WWI: A University history course about the role of the United States in the first World War. We read texts about the war in English and German and discuss them as a class. We also choose topics to give an oral presentation about each week. This is probably my most challenging class because it's full of native German speakers and the conversations can get a bit deep and beyond my knowledge of German vocabulary. Also, the professor speaks a mile a minute, but I get the gist of things.
Contrastive Linguistics: This is one of my favorite classes. It is an introductory English seminar about linguistics and comparing and contrasting the English and German languages. The professor is this cool, funny old guy from Berlin who speaks a ton of languages (or a least a few words from a ton of languages) and is a fan of class participation. It's basically a large group discussion comparing the languages which is quite helpful for me because knowing linguistically how German and English differ from one another will help me grasp the German language better.
German Grammar and Composition: This is a good class, not because it's particularly interesting but because I know it's extremely helpful. It's basically a continuation of the intensive language course I had during my first month here in Freiburg.
German History from Unification to Reunification: This has been interesting so far, it's just rather difficult since the text we read is long and in fairly complicated German and I spend half of my time looking up words, but on the bright side my vocabulary is expanding! It's not terrible though since all of the students in the class are part of my study abroad program, so we all suffer together and the instructor takes what we say into account. Also, we're taking a class trip to Berlin in January, so that's something to look forward to! :)
German Literature: This is probably my least favorite class, but I've never really been one to enjoy being assigned a book, having to read it and discuss it, and then being told that I'm "thinking the wrong things" or "not getting the meaning the author intended." How do YOU know?! This was written in the 1800s, I doubt you know what he meant either... But aside from that the class is nice. It's a comfortable atmosphere so we feel fine with speaking up and making a fool of ourselves in broken German. Some of the things we've read (poems and short essays) haven't been too bad, but I don't quite know what to think about this section on German Romanticism...
Well, those are my classes for the first semester! And I truly can't complain because this is the first semester that I've never had a Friday class! Three day weekends are wonderful things...
Until next time!
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