For the past four weeks, I’ve been taking two classes at Humboldt. One is a German language class and the other is about interreligious and intercultural dialogues in Germany. Both classes were small; the former was twelve and the latter seven people. However, Humboldt also puts on weekly events such as beach volleyball, boat tour, and museum visits where I got to meet people in other classes. What surprised me most was interacting with other students. Northwestern has a prominent proportion of international students, but I don’t think I actually meet that many on campus. It’s also just a different vibe here. I learned about university systems that are not the US and got a little shocked and peeved when I first heard that most universities are free in Europe.
Getting to class took thirty minutes rather than a two-minute walk downstairs (the classes for the first four weeks were held at CIEE.) Though I had to get up earlier, I had fun taking public transportation. It reminded me of using the CTA in high school, except Berlin’s public transportation is way better. Each class period was split into two one and a half hour blocks with a thirty-minute break in between. In my interreligious and intercultural dialogues class, we went to a lot of museums and talked about the types of dialogues that emerged in Berlin, particularly between Jewish and Turkish populations. The museums we went to were different from the excursions with the NU program, so I also got to explore different parts of Berlin.