Exchange Report Freie Universität

After coming to Berlin, I had to start immediately with classes. Before the courses started I had the change to take a German language course. It was an intensive course offered for all international students that takes place in September until the mid-October, before the courses started. The course was quite good, and the classes were quite small, and we could interact with the teacher. Unfortunately, if you do not have some knowledge of German you can not take this course since there are no language course for beginner offered by the university.

One of the struggle that I has was finding the courses that I wanted for my exchange semester. After I came to Berlin I tried to sign up for the courses that I had in my learning agreement, unfortunately, l found out that some master programme taught in English, even if are offered by the Freie Universität Berlin, they are not for Erasmus students and I was told that I had to pay if I wanted to take these courses. Since, the price for the curses was quite high I decided to take some other classes in entrepreneurship. However, if you decided to take a course that are not from your department it is up to the professor to accept students to take part to a course or not. I tried to ask to take some classes in entrepreneurship and in many cases I was told that there was not more space for those courses and that I could not join the class. In addition, if you do not have a good German language you will not have many choices where you can choose from.

The courses that I took were quite interesting and I learned a lot during my exchange period, others, on the other hand didn’t have many lectures so I felt that I was not getting much from this experience abroad.

The semester at Freie Universität Berlin starts in the mid-October and it the mid-February, so this is going to be a problem since other exchange students from other countries will be already at home writing the master thesis, while I have to take my last exams at the beginning of February and for me this means more work when I come back.

Housing The student accommodation offered by the University is quite cheap and very nice. Unfortunately, you have to share a kitchen with other students and the bathroom with your neighbour. But this is not a problem since during the entire semester we never had any problem.

Also, in the student accommodation there is a gym, music room, bar and a common room where you can watch tv or play billiard or darts. Apart from the gym, where there is a small fee to be paid for the semester, the other things are free of charge.

One problem of the Student accommodation is that there is no internet in the room. So, you might have to contact a company to come and activate the internet connection. This can take some time and can cost you some money and since many students stay only for six month many decided not to do it and continue using the phone as a modem.

Near the student accommodation there are many grocery stores and 100 meter away there is the bus stop. Unfortunately, the accommodation is neither close to the university and to the centre. It might take 35-40min to get to the university (since you have to change bus on the way) and around 30 min from the centre.

Berlin The city of Berlin is quite nice and very cheap and there are many things you can do. Apart, from museum and historical places during the year there are many big events that take place in Berlin and are quite nice. One example is the Berlin Festival of Lights (Picture below), an event that occurs annually in October. For ten days, well-known sights like Gate, Fernsehturm, or are scenes of illumination and Light art. Another interesting event is the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) a street market to celebration Christmas during the four weeks of Advent.

During the entire semester the incoming office of Freie Universität Berlin organizes many trips around the city and even in other cities around or in Poland or Czech Republic. These trips are organized for students and are quite cheap. It is a nice chance where you can meet new people and visit other cities around Germany. Unfortunately, most of this trip have few spots so sometimes is not guaranteed that you get a spot for a trip.