Travel Report, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Winter Semester 2014-2015
Table of contents Preparing for the exchange... 3 Application... 3 Arrival... 3 Matriculation... 3 1.Anmeldebestätigung... 4 2. Semestergebühr... 4 3.Krankversicherung... 4 Reception at Humboldt... 4 Accommodation... 5 Exchange Studies... 6 My courses... 7 German language course, 91535, B 2.1, 5 ECTS... 7 Marketing Management, 70615, Master s level, 3 ECTS... 7 Entrepreneurial Decision Making, 70632, Master s level, 6 ECTS... 7 Business Analytics and predictive modeling, 707922, Master s level, 6 ETCS... 8 Seminar of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Theory, 70646, Master s level, 6 ETCS... 8 Free time and other information... 9 Prices... 9 Sports... 10 Language... 10 Free time... 11 Final words... 11
Preparing for the exchange Application The application process to Humboldt is pretty clear and easy. After you get accepted for exchange at Humboldt by our school, you need to fill up an online application form for ERASMUS studies at Humboldt. In addition you need to take a German language test online even though German language is not required for studying at Master s level at Humboldt. However, you can also take bachelor courses, which are mainly lectured in German, so maybe this has something to do with that option. When your application is accepted, you get some files from Humboldt, which you need to get signed by you and our international coordinator. Everything is really clear and you will also get detailed instructions from Humboldt and if for some reason you wouldn t understand something, Humboldt s international office s coordinator is really nice and helpful. I received quite many emails before going to Berlin from the coordinator, including loads of necessary information. Arrival German school system differs a lot from the Finnish one. One thing is that the semesters run differently than in Finland. The fall semester started on 13 th of October and continued until the beginning of March. However, you are advised to arrive couple of weeks before the semester starts because of matriculation and integration week. You can also attend an intensive German language course, which starts in the beginning of September. I didn t take the course but all my friends highly recommended it. In addition you can attend a (voluntary) preparation course for mathematics and economics. I attended the first days but realized then that it wasn t that helpful. If you plan to take economics and want to recap, I would recommend attending the lectures. Matriculation Every student has to matriculate before the semester starts. You receive an e- mail with a given date when you have to go to the university to matriculate. The whole process is pretty German (requires many paper documents, patience and includes loads of bureaucracy). They will give you instructions what you need to bring with you/do before the matriculation. You need:
1.Anmeldebestätigung You need to register at Bürgeramt in order to get the document. This whole process was really annoying, since you can only do that when you have an apartment/home address. I didn t find an apartment in the begging so I couldn t register at the Bürgeramt until I got a permanent apartment. However, you can matriculate without this paper as well, since they know how difficult it is to find an apartment in Berlin, they can t assume that you have it already then. I recommend you to book online an appointment to the Bürgeramt in advance, because they are super busy (it can take months to find a free appointment some where in the city center). When you have the Anmeldebestätigung you can get a 50 welcome money from German government. You just have to bring the paper to Humboldt and sign up a paper and you ll get the money from the main building. 2. Semestergebühr You need to pay a fee of around 240 in order to get a semester ticket for the public transportation. It also includes some social contributions. I recommend paying it in advance and bringing a receipt with you to the matriculation. However you can also pay it there, but it s a bit complicated and time consuming. 3.Krankversicherung You need a certificate from a German health insurance company or a EU insurance card from your insurance company. You will get more information about this from Humboldt as well. Reception at Humboldt As mentioned earlier, Humboldt advises you to arrive in Berlin around two weeks before the semester starts. I think it was a good idea even though first it felt a bit confusing because we didn t have anything else to do then search for an apartment and do all the paper stuff. The week before the lectures started we had an orientation week, which we all agreed, was not that well organized. We actually had only one day, when we really had some scheduled program and info session, which was really nice and helpful. All the other activities were mostly events in the evening at different bars, but we didn t have any activities there, so it was our own responsibility to get to know each other and organize some activities. However the coordinators were really nice and also happy to answer all our questions, so in the end we
got all the necessary information but the info/introduction to studying at Humboldt could be a bit better organized as well as the integration week. One of the best things organized by the WiWi (name of the international office) was an Erasmus trip to Dresden, it was super fun and memorable weekend, and a very good opportunity to get to know the other exchange students as well. I can definitely recommend taking part to that trip. Humboldt, main building. Accommodation You can either stay at the student dorm from Studentenwerk or find an apartment from private markets. The dorm is really far away from the city center and our faculty. One of my friends stayed at the dorm and was really annoyed of the long distances but on the other hand he was really happy to meet other students and make good friends there. I decided to find a place by myself, which turned out to be really difficult! Nowadays, so many people move in to Berlin and the prices a rising really fast, which is why finding an apartment/room is much more difficult now compared to around two- tree years ago. I stayed first at a nice Airbnb apartment (and got really good friends from there). After that I stayed one month with my friends friends place and only after that I found my own room in a shared flat. I would definitely recommend staying in a shared flat. We got really good friends with my roommates and it was nice to have also local friends in addition to exchange students. In
addition, it is much nicer to live in a nice area (compared to the area where the student dorm is). Distances are pretty long in berlin anyways so for me it was important that I stayed in a good located and nice area. Best websites for finding apartment are www.wg- gesucht.de and www.studenten- wg.de. You can also put your own searching- for- apartment announcement on the webpages. There are also many good Facebook groups for finding apartment. Even though it might be pretty hard to find an apartment I definitely recommend it! Go first to a hostel or Airbnb and take a look at the areas where you want to live, in Berlin the area matters! Areas, which I liked and would recommend to live at, are; Neukölln, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and Prenzlauerberg. Exchange Studies Studying at Humboldt was really different from studying at Aalto. First, as mentioned earlier the semester dates are really different from those in Finland. Second, there are two different types of courses offered, lectures and seminars. At the lectures usually professor gives a talk once a week and sometimes tutorials are also held once a week and then there is an exam in the end of the semester. In some of the courses exam makes up 100% of the grade but I also had courses were we had presentations or assignments. Seminars are intensive courses of a few weeks and don t have any exams but you had to write an academic paper and give a presentation. You don t have to register for lectures in advance and for the seminars every professor has his own requirements so the registration differs from seminar to seminar. Exchange student are allowed to take any courses at the Economics and business faculty and since you don t have to register for the lectures you can visit many courses and then choose which ones are most interesting and take those. You only have to register for the exams in the end of the semester. Humboldt is really economics and mathematics oriented and actually all the courses include at least some basic mathematics. I think it is not possible to avoid the mathematics completely at Humboldt. However, even though I am a marketing student and am not a big fan of mathematics, the courses were pretty interesting and after putting a bit of effort, the math is doable with the basic knowledge from Aalto.
My courses German language course, 91535, B 2.1, 5 ECTS I took a German language course, which took place once a week for four hours per time. It is organized by the language center and therefor costs 40. Attendance was obligatory. Our teacher (Martin Rahl) was really nice and good, I would definitely recommend to take his courses. Even though it was a speaking course we also had some written assignments. Grade was defined by small assignments, presentation and a written exam. Marketing Management, 70615, Master s level, 3 ECTS This course had 2 hours lecture once a week and an exam in the end of the semester. In other words: no work during the semester. However, even though this might sound easy and it is only 3 credits, the exam was really difficult (and only 60min) and the exam area was really heavy. I would say it took as much work as a 6 credits course. And the professor actually said that next semester it will be 6 credits course. Even though the attendance is not obligatory, I highly recommend attending the lectures. In the exam were a few questions you could only answer if you attended the lectures. So the professor assumes you listen carefully and take notes. Compared to marketing courses at Aalto, this was completely different and more difficult. Half of the course was different formulas and calculations and the approach to the whole topic was different than in Aalto. The professor (Daniel Klapper) was not the best or nicest one. Entrepreneurial Decision Making, 70632, Master s level, 6 ECTS This course had 2 hours lecture once a week, a SPSS workshop in the beginning of the semester (around 6 hours all together) and a 2 hours tutorial once a week. The final grade was defined by an assignment (which included a presentation as well), small SPSS test and the final exam. I was first a bit scared of the fact that we used SPSS because I didn t use it ever before but it was absolutely no problem. The preparatory SPSS workshop was really good and in the end I didn t even need to use SPSS in my assignment. I liked the professor (Professor Schade), however almost the whole course material consisted of academic papers written of him. Because of this, the course approach was quite narrow. In addition, it was really theoretical and we didn t have any examples of real life. I would rename the course financial
decision making instead of entrepreneurial, since in the end the course didn t have that much to do whit entrepreneurship. However, I liked the course and Professor Scahde s assistant Anna Abratis, who held the tutorials, was really nice. Business Analytics and predictive modeling, 707922, Master s level, 6 ETCS This course had 2 hours lecture and a 2 hours tutorial once a week. The final grade was defined by an assignment (50%) and an exam (50%). The professor (Stefan Lessmann) was really good, probably one of the best ones I ve ever had. The course content was about big data and different methods to analyze it. The lecture material was pretty easily understandable but you had to know everything (700 slides) by heart at the exam. The assignment was really difficult. We got a huge dataset and we had to analyze it by using R program, which I never had had before. I was lucky to have a friend who was willing to teach me to use it. I wouldn t recommend this course if you didn t use R before, or at least you have to be really willing to learn coding and put a lot of effort to learn it by yourself. However, even though the assignment was really difficult, the content of the course was interesting, topical and I learned a lot. Seminar of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Theory, 70646, Master s level, 6 ETCS You were not able to register to the seminar in advance and there were place only for 20 students. The registration took place at the first class, and in the end we were not even 20 students who were willing to attend the seminar. I don t know how they normally decide who can attend if there are too many students. Professor Schade and his assistant Anna Abratis held this seminar. The grade was defined by a research paper (70%) and presentation (30%). We didn t have any classes, you had to do everything independently but Anna was always willing to meet if we had any questions. Everyone got a research topic, and we had to reduplicate the experiment and write a research paper (around 20 pages) of it. The course also included a seminar weekend; we travelled to a small city called Quedlingburg for four days and everyone had to present his or her research papers there. I would really recommend this seminar, even though it didn t have anything to do with entrepreneurship and innovation theory. I would rather call this course financial decision making as well. The seminar weekend was really fun and memorable and I made many good friends there. In addition, it was nice that we didn t have any classes or a final exam. But please note that we had to pay for the weekend trip (100 ) but it was definitely worth it!
Free time and other information Berlin is definitely my favorite place on earth! There is something for everyone; culture, history, music, bars, numerous amazing restaurants and friendly people. You will never get bored in Berlin. The problem is more that you don t have enough time to do everything you want to. Even though Berlin is a really big city, you will get to know it pretty fast and you ll know where you want to spend time. The atmosphere is very liberal and really relaxed and it is easy to get to know people. Berlin is totally different from other Germany, there is actually not much more than the German language and bureaucracy, which reminded me of Germany. Teufelsberg, abandoned former US listening station. Prices One of the good things in Berlin is the cost of living; Berlin is really cheap. However, the prices have four folded in five years (according to my local friends) and they keep rising. It s not that cheap to rent a room anymore. Loads of people (especially young and artsy people) keep moving into Berlin from all around the world in the hope of better life. Therefore, the city is very international; sometimes I forgot where I actually was because you can hear all different languages in Berlin. However the price of food and for example cosmetics are really low. You can have a big and delicious meal at a restaurant for 5 only.
Neue Heimat, lovely bar/street food place. Sports Humboldt offers loads of different sport courses. There is almost everything you can imagine, and the prices are pretty cheap. I took spinning and yoga, which were both around 20 for the whole semester. Registration for the courses was in mid October (about one week after the semester began), and almost every course was fully book in 10min so be fast! I also had a Gym membership for couple of months. It was a women s gym (First Fit) next to my place in Neukölln and cost around 30 per month. In addition, I had a 10- times Yoga Card to a really lovely place called Yellow Yoga. Language Berlin is the only city in Germany where you can imagine living without knowing any German. However, I think it makes everyday life much easier if you know even the basics. Almost everyone speaks English and if not, there are always helpful people around who can interpret. However, at Humboldt quite many official things are only in German and they might be quite complicated even though you speak German. In addition, at least older people really appreciate it if you speak German. I had the feeling that sometimes local people didn t respect English speaking people that much.
Free time There is so much going on Berlin every day! I think I didn t spend even single evening at home because there was always something new and interesting to explore. What I like the most, there are always also free events, so it isn t even expensive to do something everyday. Food culture is amazing; there are so many different street food events every week/month and you can find all different types of food all around the world in there. There are also loads of different, cheap restaurants and new ones are opened almost every week. Berlin is a heaven for a food lover! In addition, Berlin is full of cozy cafes and small bars no to mention the best club scene in the whole world. There are so many interesting clubs and bars in Berlin that you don t even have time to visit every of them in half a year. I also went to many good concerts, galleries and flea markets for example at Mauerpark and Boxhagener platz on Sundays. Mauerpark. Final words I spent an amazing and memorable half a year in Berlin and got friends for a lifetime. The semester exceeded all my expectations and Berlin is definitely a city that is really worth experiencing! I can warmly recommend Berlin and Humboldt for exchange semester.
However, personally I would maybe recommend going there for Master s exchange, since there is not that much support for the incoming students. For bachelor exchange I would choose a destination where things are more organized on behalf of the exchange University. In addition, remember that Humboldt is quite demanding University; so even though you ll have the time of your life in Berlin, you also need to put a lot of effort to the courses. I would say it s a perfect package: you get the ability to study at a recognized University in an amazing city! If you have any questions feel free to ask me, just send me an email: louna.laurila (@) aalto.fi