Sober again

Dear Netherlands,


The title might be misleading but instead of going to a party tonight I am staying at home, writing this blog entry and reading countless texts for uni. Uni has me in its claws again.
Bye, careless Erasmus life full of friends and fun! No, seriously, that's why I chose this title: Last week seemed like a dream. Yesterday was the day that brought me down from my high cloud.


During the introduction lecture last week they said that being an international student is like riding on a rollercoaster: you experience ups and downs. When you're feeling high, it gets downhill too soon again, and when you're feeling low, it gets uphill soon enough.
This is perfectly accurate.

The teaching here is quite different from what I am used to in Germany. The lecturers demand a great deal from their students - they demand a lot, but they also give a lot. Yesterday I had a great lecture on Political Communication. The lecturer was energetic, dynamic. Apart from randomly picking students to answer his questions to iniate our thinking and actively following his thoughts, he also did a quiz were the students could participate directly. Last week in the intro lecture they also already did a quiz where the students were asked to participate with their electronic devices.
I enjoyed the Political Communication lecture very much. I loved how the students were asked to think actively while following the class, express criticism, state counter-arguments, develop own ideas. I experienced the lecture as invigorating, as interactive and much more 'practical'.
The lecturer stated repeatedly that we were third year students and therefore encouraged to apply our knowledge.
Not only in this one but also in my other two classes I was stunned by the amount of reading we have to do for each lecture (lectures several times a week, not only once a week like in Germany) and even more reading for the tutorials. And then again I learned that they value interaction highly here: in the Political Communication class we will have to write a strategy paper as a group and fight our own electoral campaign in class. In the Democratisation lecture we will have a 'Democracy-table'. In the Theories of International Relations lecture we will do a mini-Model United Nations Session. Applied knowledge. The lecture style in the Netherlands seems more active, compared to Germany where I experience it as much more passive and where the students seem to have less opportunities to apply their knowledge.
Also in Germany, students seem to stick to pen and paper more, whereas in the Netherlands the rows in the lecture halls are sometimes even equipped with sockets and the Dutch students use their laptops or notebooks instead of paper sheets.
I talked to my International Relations lecturer today who used to teach in Hannover for a long time and was called to Nijmegen last October. She also stated the same differences like I did between the two systems and said that she preferred the Dutch way more which resembles the way they do it in America.


The motto of the Radboud Uni is 'change perspective.' And after only two days of classes I can feel that my thinking is about to change and will be changed tremendously in the course of the next five months.
Our Political Communication lecturer promised us that after his course we will never look at media ever again the same way. I am certain we won't do that.
Since I am here my thinking has been inspired and altered every day. My perspective is constantly being challenged and changed due to the many insights I get from talking to peers, exchanging thoughts with new friends, reading, listening to the lecturers.

For my stay here I wished to raise my awareness. I reckon it has already started.


I am sober again since I have arrived on the ground again - on uni grounds. And this is exactly what I asked for.



Since today I am officially a citizen of Nijmegen. My Italian friend and I registered at the 'Stadswinkel' this morning but we did not have time to feel accomplished afterwards since we had to rush to uni to be on time for the first class.
We were not on time. From the city centre it's ususally only ten minutes to uni. But since I followed the Italian we were half an hour late for our classes... In the meantime we discovered new pretty areas of Nijmegen... I would not say we got lost completely, we just took the wrong turn at one of the many roundabouts in Nijmegen and well, took the scenic route...
I guess I'll do that more often: take the scenic route.


I'm off to my uni texts and a good cup of tea.


Love,


Jane