Christmas in October

Author: Hannah Bylak | Majors: Electrical Engineering and German

I have been participating in the IEP and I chose this program because I would be able to spend a year in Germany, experience education environments, and the work culture. This program advances my academic goals by improving my German in subjects that I plan to continue in my career. As I take electrical engineering classes in German, I learn not only more specifics about what I study, but it familiarizes me with the vocabulary pertaining to papers and correspondence I may see in my career. Professionally, this advances my goals because I strive to work as an in-between for companies hoping to start foreign offices. My classes and instructors so far are difficult to understand. All my classes are engineering specific and taught in German, so it’s a lot to adjust to. One of my classes is also a graduate-level class. Many of my classes overlap as well, but because attendance is not required and most are online, I am able to watch recordings. I believe an added difficulty to taking these classes is that they are online. When classes were taken online at the University of Arkansas, many students suddenly experienced drops in grades. It is difficult to connect to other students that you don’t see, so I was left without other students to study with. Our semesters here though are also different from the University of Arkansas’.  The semester here started October 18th, but will go into the end of March, so it’s possible that it is just too early in the semester to have met other students in my classes. Our classes here “meet” once a week. It’s similar to having one lecture for the week, one drill for the week, then being sent home with practice problems. I would like to say that also due to these classes being moved online and generally being known as difficult, most of my classes have weekly “bonus” quizzes. These quizzes give us the chance of increasing our grade at the end of the semester, assuming that we pass the final without them.

Viktualien Markt Fresh Flowers

Outside of class, I have visited Münich with some other exchange students from the University of Arkansas and an Isreali exchange student. We visited the BMW Headquarters, Olympic Park, and the Victuals Market. There were many stalls in the Victuals Market that sold flowers. Some were fresh-cut and others were dried and hanging. There were many wreaths made with sweet smelling cinnamon and pine, as they were getting ready for the Christmas season. Because they don’t celebrate Halloween or thanksgiving, Christmas takes up practically the entirety of fall and winter. This trip was easily made by train, and once we were there, all of our travel was by foot.

I so far would recommend this program to other students. It’s difficult to keep up with, because you have to learn the German language as you learn the technical specifics for your engineering field, but overall the experience is priceless. Being in another country, especially somewhere in Europe, opens up a lot of doors. It’s much more likely for me to be able to take a weekend trip with classmates and find a place to stay than it is in the United States. I wish I had known how to have the bank accounts and Visas set up before arriving here though. It causes a lot of difficulties trying to work things out once here. The foreigners’ office here is slow to process anything and it means a longer delay in having access to our funds.