Summer school! My experience in Germany
Hi all! Hope you are doing great!
This time I will tell you about international summer schools. It may sound like a bit oxymoron in the sense of who wants to attend school in summer. However, this is an actual, cool option to go abroad. Especially if you are looking for something shorter and more flexible than study exchanges.
This post is based on my experience of summer school in Germany. The summer school was part of my internship (about which I already wrote a post) and because of this, I did not need to apply for the summer school. Therefore, unlike my posts about internship abroad and Erasmus exchange, I will not write about the application process. Instead, I will tell you about my experience as an example of a summer school. I hope this will be inspirational for you!
But summer schools. They are short-term (just a couple of weeks or a month) programs organized by universities. There are programs in all kinds of study fields to choose from. The summer school I participated in was about learning German and German culture and took place in Mainz just like my internship.
For some of my fellow participants, the summer school was part of their study exchange to improve their language skills. Some others told me that they had not been able to do an exchange because of Covid so they had applied to a summer school to have even a short international experience. So there are many reasons to participate in this kind of program.
Usually, the program includes lectures and studying but also leisure time activities, and possible field trips. And yeah, the summer schools cost something.
If you are interested in summer schools, here are some links to get you started: Home – Summer Schools in Europe
Also, if you have a university in mind where you would like to do this kind of program, you can search for what type of summer schools they offer. Just keep in mind that there might be limitations of the study fields and you may not find an ideal program for you. For example, my university organizes this kind of summer school only on STEM. As a humanist, I must say that is quite limiting.
Pros
- Summer schools are short! Summer school might be a nice, flexible option if you want to study abroad but cannot sacrifice a whole semester for an exchange.
- Quite relaxed programs that are more about networking and getting experiences than strictly only studying
- Who does not like field trips?
I am clearly not promoting summer schools properly because I can only come up with three pros. But honestly, this is a super cool and interesting way to study abroad for at least a few weeks. I am super grateful for the opportunity to participate and can recommend these programs!
Cons
- Well, as mentioned, summer schools usually cost something which is obviously a huge downside. However, this can be overcome with a scholarship! You can acquire scholarships from the university that organizes the summer school. Or you can ask your home department if they offer scholarships. Also, if your university has collaborations, alliances, or something similar with other universities, there might be scholarships in those networks to increase the mobility of students. Even if your options were limited, you should be able to find affordable ways to participate in summer school if you want to.
- Summer schools are short. This can also be a limitation. You have just met a bunch of nice, cool people around the world, and before you notice the month ends and you all go back to your countries. So sad! Also, from an accommodation point of view, the shortness might be a problem. It is too long time to stay in a hotel, but you do not want to spend a lot of money on an apartment where you stay only for a few weeks.
Hmm, I cannot come up with more cons, too, which is telling. Well, maybe the downside is that you do not have time to integrate properly into the student community. Also, the program with all the activities and stuff can be too intensive some days.
But what did we do during the summer school?
Our summer school lasted about four weeks and was organized by the same organization where I did my internship. The organization helped the participants find apartments from the Studentenwerk, the local Student Services. The apartments were furnished but they needed to buy additional packages for kitchen supplies, bedsheets, and stuff. I lived most of my internship similarly in an apartment of Studentenwerk and I wrote more about it in my post about the internship.
I do not remember the exact number of participants but I think there were between 20 and 30 of us. And we came from about eight countries. We were divided into three groups based on our level of German (A-level, B-level, and C-level according to the CEFR levels). To find out our German level, we did an online test before the program started.
The summer school consisted of language lessons and an afternoon program. We had two quite intensive language lessons each morning. I think the German teaching culture was very nice and learner-friendly. We did exercises from a book, but we also watched videos, played games, and did some interactive activities every day, to give you some idea. We even went to a food market in the city center once and had breakfast with our teacher. That was very lovely! At the end of the course, we prepared and acted in little scenes to show what we had learned. This was our only assignment in the summer school.
The afternoon program varied from day to day. In the beginning, we had some teambuilding workshops to get to know each other. Later we had thematic lessons about German politics, literature, history, etc. I think all these were interesting opportunities to learn something new about Germany. Of course, the history lecture was my favorite.
On top of these, we had field trips. We had guided tours in Mainz, and three other cities nearby. We also visited a local regional parliament. It was fascinating to see so many great places! I also enjoyed that we had a guide to explain what we saw. It was cool to learn something special about every place. As the pictures of Frankfurt and Rüdesheim below show, we saw many sides of Germany!
Some of the participants had just started to learn German and others were stronger in German than in English, so the afternoon and leisure time program demanded adjustments with languages. Unlike the German classes, we were usually not divided into three groups but just two: one English-speaking group and another German-speaking group. This way everybody could participate without impossible demands.
Especially in the beginning, the program was quite intensive, but we did have free time, too. We did not have the afternoon program every day (almost though) and weekends were free except one Saturday (when we went to Rüdesheim). Thus we also had an opportunity to explore Germany by ourselves. And indeed we did trips among us students as well, which was super nice!
And that is everything I have for you about summer school. My experience was great and as said before, I would recommend this kind of program for people who want to try studying abroad but may not be sure if doing a semester-long exchange is really for them. In my opinion, summer schools are more flexible and relaxed than longer exchanges. So hopefully this post could inspire you to discover different possibilities to go and study abroad!
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