Exams in Germany hit all in one extremely unexpected and powerful wave. This entire semester I have been relaxed, probably encouraged by the fact that all I have had to do is attend class and understand the lectures as much as possible (3/5 of of them are in German). Occasionally I have to do some reading. Really, the workload has been significantly less than I am used to and I thought, hey, when final projects come around I’ll have worked on them for months.
Right.
Now I’ve got 10 days until my first presentation and I realize that I should have been paying more attention! To be fair, I did start on my presentations about a month and a half ago. I began reading the material, drawing up outlines, making sure I was aware of at least the subject I am covering. That’s about it.
Now there’s some more culture shock 5 months into my stay here in Koblenz. That is, college culture shock because the way they run things here is entirely different than they do at St. Edward’s. At least in the classes I am in, there is no homework or papers to write until the end. I read the material, show up to class, participate, and go home. Easy, for someone who normally writes at least 1 essay per week!
No, the real stress in this system is at the end, when there is a final presentation and an essay due. Now I’ve got 2 presentations and 2 essays in German, 1 more to go in English, and a German language examination. Yikes! This is really different than at St. Edward’s–not that that’s a bad thing, I’m just not used to it.
It also strikes me as a bit odd. Of course final exams are at the end of the semester–that’s why they’re “finals”–but for exchange students, we’ve begun to grasp that we’re nearing the end. It’s a live-every-day-like-there’s-no-tomorrow situation, because in this country, there aren’t many tomorrows left for us. Some of the other students are traveling more than they did in the beginning because they’re going to leave in a little over a month. I keep refraining from eating all the traditional German things I can’t get back in the States.
Oh, yet another story of an exchange student who spent too much time traveling and not enough time studying. Fortunately I have enough time to turn this around in my favor.
And with that, my 30 minute break is up. Time to go read some more German articles!