Not Welcome in Germany

I have been studying for a Master’s Degree at a German university for about nine months now. Before I go into my complete critique, I would first like to briefly describe what I’m doing.

I am essentially studying Intercultural Communication and European Studies. The program ends up being about half in English and half in German. The strength of the program is that it attracts literally students from all over the world, which additionally led to a pretty disappointing first semester, as it was believed that many of the international students had to be eased into the program. Needless to say after being in the second of the three semesters (the fourth semester is solely reserved for writing a thesis) I have come to the following conclusions.

German Universities rank pretty low on the world university ranking list. There is a reason for that. One benefit of studying in Germany is that the price of the education is relatively cheap. To be sure I’m paying less than $1,000 a semester, and that is being an international student. However, after diving into the program it becomes apparent that this does have a price. The universities just do not have any money to put toward its institutions and finding good professors. Furthermore students do not have easy access to print services, good literature, or even to the professors themselves. Many of the professors display a very stand offish attitude towards the students, perhaps as a way of showing superiority, than a desire to actually take a part in the learning of their students. Though my current program is more or less an exception to this last point as the campus is very small, you can hear these same complaints from many German students who have had experience at large unis. This probably relates to the cost of the program, as the professors are unwilling to display a sort of customer service attitude that you readily find at a lot of American universities.

Another point is the mentality of the German students themselves. If you have ever attempted to attend a lecture, you are met with many distractions such as people talking, walking in and out constantly, as well as being called a “Streber” if you show any remote interest in a subject. In fact, I can readily compare it to the attitude that is found through American High Schools, which makes the price of the education a probable reason for this. Additionally, German attitudes toward international students is very standoffish and unforgiving. Germany is ranked very low in terms of what they call “Integrationspolitik” and the classroom is a direct representation of that. As my program consists half of international students and half of German students, when one walks into the classroom one will notice an invisible line that separates these two groups. The international students have displayed frustration and I find the following remarks quite prevalent:

“If they were in my country, we would show them the excitement of being new and foreign, and would attempt to make them feel at home. I just don’t feel at home here.”

“Germans are boring. They do not want to talk to you, and when they do its usually to ask for things.”

“I have never been invited to the home of one of the German students. I seem to be doing all the inviting.”

“After telling someone that I was a foreigner, he asked me when I was leaving.”

These frustrations sadden me. Though I’m not German, I can see that Germany is losing a great opportunity of providing their students a good education in comparison to other universities found around the world. Having a cheap education does not make up for the fact that after one completes the program, they could still be uncompetitive in regards to the other students who decided to stay home. Furthermore, the German professor’s and student’s mentality regarding international students should take an about face. International students are a very efficient way of acquiring talent, and it should be the objective to not only teach them about German culture (which has not been done) but to learn something as well.

These issues do not go unnoticed. Part of becoming a German citizen if you are a foreigner born in Germany, is to choose between a German passport or the passport of your home country. Statistics have shown that one of the reasons why German citizenship has decreased over the years since the reformation in 1998, is because a lot of people are choosing the latter.

But can you blame them? The lack of German university representation on the ranking system is not ill founded. Though these rankings are controversial in themselves, it still does not fix the issue of people feeling not welcomed. Though this feeling is highly dependent on where one is, as even international students on American and British universities are probably finding it hard to “integrate” or rather be “accepted” for who they are, it is more apparent here. It is a shame and perhaps one day this way of thinking will change. If not, it is probably wise to find somewhere else to study than in Germany. A lot of the international students, at least here, are thinking the same thing.