Hitting the books

Before I left for Berlin, the man at the international exchange office informed me that if I didn’t speak much German I would find university impossible. He recommended that I go somewhere easier, perhaps Scandinavia? Smirking inwardly, I politely told him the decision was made. He rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and, turning back to his computer, said ‘Well, if you phone our office in tears, don’t say that I didn’t warn you’.

It’s now the second week of the German summer semester and my apparently imminent breakdown has yet to appear. But the cobwebs have been well and truly shaken from my neurons and I am thinking again. After five months in the wilderness, there’s something oddly comforting about having something academic to bitch about, sifting through poorly-structured and woefully lengthy cases and fronting up to class plus hangover and große Kaffee but minus pens, paper and a shower.

As it turns out, I’m going to be studying at two universities. Humboldt University was my original first preference. Located right on Unter Den Linden, the main Straße in the city, lovingly decorated with statues, columns and the odd touch of gold; producer of almost 30 Nobel Prize winners – it’s a postcard-perfect dreamboat institution.

However, things aren’t so pretty beneath its reconstructed façade. Humboldt’s ranking has been slipping for quite some time - it seems like they’re relying on their prestige (much like another well-known institution dear to my heart) to keep attendance up. The Law Faculty’s financial situation appears so dire that during the summer break the building is covered by a tennis-court sized advertisement for Mercedes-Benz. Inside, lecture theaters are filled with wooden desks which come with inkpot holes. It seems that things just haven’t been the same since the infamous book burning incident of 1933.

I considered Freie University to be the ‘Monash’ of Berlin and originally I wasn’t too happy to have to enroll here instead of Humboldt. However, I have been pleasantly surprised. While it’s located far, far away from everything (except perhaps a lake, a conservative suburb and a French restaurant) once you get here things are quite good. It’s spread-out and lush – when the weather is fine you can take a spot on the grass and do your homework amongst the students eating icecreams. The buildings are modern, the classrooms are light and the cafeteria is adequate. While it’s slim on law classes in English, they offer free language classes for everyone. My 12 free hours of German a week has convinced me that I should never judge a university by its website, nor following a Google Maps search.

This afternoon I’ve got Recent Cases in Public International Law and European Law, a subject sorely lacking a memorable acronym. The next hurdle is to try and get these subjects approved by my home university so I can receive a full semester’s worth of credits so I can be free and clear of my law degree forever. I’m going to leave all that until after the weekend though, to resolve on my victorious return from Stockholm. Sweden again, you ask? Well, as those in the know will tell you, too much Svensk is never enough.