First Week of Classes

My first 5 weeks of Göttingen have gone by in a blur. During the first three weeks, I took an intense language course with other European exchange students who are also going to be in Göttingen for the semester and/or year. The true value of the course was not really learning more German (academically, I got very little out of the course), but rather getting an orientation to the university and meeting other people. The language course felt a bit like freshman orientation all over again.

After the course ended, Jackie, some friends from the language course, and I went to Munich and Oktoberfest, and then Jackie and I went on to Vienna. Probably either Jackie or I will later blog about Munich and/or Vienna, so I won't dwell on that much now. But I will say that it was a wonderful trip.

Now, though, vacation/orientation time is over and the school year has begun. The process of registering for classes has been, quite frankly,  a headache. The Göttingen website isconfusing and the process of finding and registering for classes very complicated. All the German students I have met have been incredibly helpful in attempting to explain the process, but often even they do not completely understand it. To explain: every department organizes their course selection process differently and have different registration deadlines. For instance, I can search for German Department courses in the central course catalog, but I cannot find the descriptions of the courses there. To find the course descriptions, I must go to the German Department website. The History Department includes course descriptions in the course catalog for most but not all courses (there are some courses that seem interesting based on their title, but I cannot find the description or reading list anywhere). Some departments (ex. Spanish) do not include descriptions on their websites or in the course catalog, but rather on the website through which we register for classes. 

After going though the trouble of actually finding classes, the registration website is easy to navigate and I do not have to get the signature of an advisor. However, much to my surprise, the German Department required students to register for classes a month ago. Now that the deadline has passed, I have to send an email to the professor of the German lit class I want to take asking for permission. I wrote him a week ago and am still waiting a reply. Whether or not I get an email, I am still going to the class tomorrow and hopefully I will not be thrown out.

I now know more or less which courses I am taking, but am using this week to shop around a bit. My Spanish class yesterday was very well taught, and I have heard great things about the professor of the history class I am taking at 6 pm today (evening classes seem common). I am excited that the official school year has finally begun and I will let you know how things progress from here.