Student: Kenny
Freie Universität Berlin, Summer 2008

My program is actually called FUBis, and it is held between the 19th of July and the 16th of August 2008. On orientation day, I noticed something that was very different from my friends’ courses, or at least what they told me about them. I found that among 300 people, there are less than 20 East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans etc.). Of course there are Middle-Easterns, quite a few of them actually.

Something I noticed throughout the four weeks is that almost 80% of participants have a scholarship, be it DAAD, Freie Universität or one from their own country. I am also a DAAD scholarship recipient, but I receive a smaller amount most of the other course participants. My intensive language course costs 1200 Euros, and accommodation costs 360 Euros, plus an administrative fee of 200 Euros. If you attend all excursions, that is around 300 Euros more. It really amounts to more than double of what most universities on the list we got. Another slight drawback of this course is that my dormitory, a student village, is very far from the city center and far from the university as well. I had to take the bus and Underground to school every day, and it took at least 30 minutes to get there. For the four weeks of my course, I have done a mid-course test, a final exam, four vocabulary tests, etc. However, I think I did really improve my German under this intensive learning.

On the whole, I really enjoy this summer course, and I would regret if I had not chosen this university in the first place. As for recommending future students to attend or not, I would say it is your own choice. If you want an enjoyable holiday while learning German in a fun and relaxed way, it is definitely not a suitable choice for you. But if you can afford this slightly over-priced course and want a high workload and a well organized course to boost your German in the summer, it is without doubt an awesome choice!