By Anne Rieger
With the mid – term essays coming up, college life is actually getting serious now, and so does today’s column. I bet you feel the same. Today I want to talk to you about the difference between Irish and German universities (or specifically my university of Bonn).
Everybody here is busy. Busy doing stuff for uni, busy doing stuff for societies, busy doing life in general. But are they? People still have time to hang around in Smokeys or Sult and go to pubs or the movies. And I honestly can’t say it’s any different for me.
Work for university here feels like this sudden rush. You are not busy at all, then suddenly you have three assignments coming up and you just hope that the lecturer will give out information about it on time. Then suddenly it’s all over and you go back to this “I still have enough time until I have to hand in my next essay” mood.
In Germany the work is more spread out throughout the year, or you have much more time for assignments. Most of them are much longer as well.
I just procrastinate through both systems, but here my procrastination really seems to work best. Otherwise I’ll just get nervous about the delayed handout of information, or about people being late and very laid back here.
So, all in all I enjoy university life here much more. Being on campus all day, hanging out with my friends for a tea or study groups are things that don’t happen in Germany. I love the general mood of studying together, it’s nice to be around people all day.
Lecturers here are much more understanding as well, they really seem to get you and care about your grades. So, if you ever have a problem there are people you can talk to.
This column is probably not the funniest I have written but I just think it’s important to get this message out there in the spirit of mental health week. It is very important to talk to your friends or a lecturer when you feel too much pressure, or when you are homesick. There are always people that care about you and that don’t want you to feel bad. In Bonn we don’t have the facilities for that, but in NUI Galway you can actually talk to a professional therapist as well.
I’m very sorry about this serious topic – I’ll make sure to talk about something fun next week. Maybe bread. I really miss good bread.
