Willkommen züruck to my blog! In this post, I want to talk a bit about the transportation here in Germany, specifically to explain the train system, since that is probably the best way to get around Germany as a student. While most people are probably familiar with the German automobile manufacturers, and while Germans do love their cars, the rail systems here in Germany are also quite good, and for students who can't afford to have a BMW, is really the best way to see Germany. The rail system here can be a bit complicated to a newcomer, so hopefully this blog post will help to explain it.

   Most of Germany is connected by the Deutsche Bahn (which literally means German railway) which offers a few different types of services. Deutsche Bahn is a federal system, covering the entire country, so in a way it is similar to Amtrak in the United States. Deutsche Bahn is famous for the ICE trains (Inter City Express), which generally connected the larger cities and metropolitan areas with high speed services, for example, it is possible to take ICE from Mannheim to Frankfurt or Stuttgart with the journey only taking about a half hour. ICE can also take you to Munich from Mannheim in about 3 hours or Berlin in about 5 hours. I've used it quite a bit, including for my trip to Paris which takes under 3 1/2 hours. The ICE trains can go as fast as 300 km/h which is about 186 mph. While ICE is a great way to travel, and is very efficient, comfortable and fast, it is quite expensive.

   The next step down from ICE would be the IC and EC (Inter City and Euro City) trains. The Intercity (IC) trains are also long distance like the ICE, but are slower and make more stops than the Express does. The EuroCity (EC) trains are international long distance trains that you could take to other countries for less than ICE would cost. I used the IC train from Mannheim to Mainz, and despite it supposedly being slower than ICE, still only took about 45 minutes since there are no stops between the two cities.

   The next service class down from IC and EC is the Regional Express (RE) and Regionalbahn (RB). The RegionalExpress trains are medium distance that are still semi-fast, and as the name implies, are used on a regional level only, to connect smaller cities nearby with a larger one, for example. The RegionalBahn is very similar to the RegionalExpress, but generally makes more stops and is therefore slower. Again, it is used to connect a region.
   
    The next levels of service are generally limited to the larger metropolitan and population centers, however they can be found in places like the Mannheim area (called the Rhein-Neckar region). In these larger areas where there is a handful of cities with larger populations, you will find the S-Bahn trains, which are suburban trains similar to SEPTA's regional rail system. They run fairly frequently and make many stops in towns that are nearby cities, for example, you can take the S-Bahn from Mannheim to other smaller cities and towns like Worms and Speyer. Some very large cities will have a U-Bahn system, which is not run by Deutsche Bahn but by the city itself. Only in very large cities like Berlin and Munich will you find the U-Bahn, which is a subway system like the NYC Subway or the D.C. Metro.

   Other cities, such as Mannheim/Heidelberg/Ludwigshafen also have a network of light rail/tram lines that connect these cities to each other as well as providing you a way to get around the city. In the Rhine-Neckar region these are run by the RNV, and are quite affordable, and as a student you can use all of the trams plus the S-Bahn and RegionalBahn trains within the region as much as you want with the semester ticket which costs 150 EUR. I use the trams all the time to get to the university from my apartment, since it saves me time and walking. The trams run every 10 minutes on weekdays.

That's it for now, until next time I'll leave you with a picture of an ICE train. Tchüß!

Guten abend, and welcome back to my blog. In this post, I'd like to talk a bit about the classes here at the University of Mannheim, and some similarities and differences between the classes in Germany vs. the United States. For this fall term in Mannheim, I am taking four classes, although only three of them are actually at the university, as I am taking an online class from Drexel called "Crossing the Bridge" which is a Language course designed to help us stay connected with our home country while learning and reflecting upon the new culture we are experiencing. The face-to-face courses I'm taking in Mannheim are Operations Management, Management Information Systems, and a German language Oral Communications course. I had originally planned on also taking an international economics course, as I am a Finance/International Business double major at Drexel, but elected not to so that my workload would be manageable (I'm taking the equivalent of 15 drexel credits instead of 19 or my usual 20).

I learned that it is very good to be flexible with your courses and to make sure you work on your plan of study both before you study abroad as well as during the study abroad term. As a finance major, I was really hoping to be able to begin taking finance courses as I am in my third year at Drexel and finance courses are 300-level courses, but unfortunately Mannheim did not offer an English Intro Finance course. Therefore, I had to adjust my plan of study a bit and take the MIS and OPM courses instead, which are in English and will transfer back to Drexel as some of my general business requirements. I also wasn't originally planning on a German Language course, but thought that it would be highly beneficial to improve my language skills while I am here.

Something I didn't know about until the orientation here in Mannheim was that some courses have multiple sessions, not just the lecture. On the university's online course catalog it will just list the lecture time on the schedule, but in reality there are also Exercise and Tutorial sections for some courses. This would be similar to how a Drexel course might have a Lecture and Recitation, however, some courses such as the Operations Management course I am taking have both the Exercise and Tutorials, which are on different days and times from the lecture. While the Exercise and Tutorial sections are generally optional, it is very beneficial to attend, as the TA's/graduate assistants teaching them will typically not only help to clarify the lecture material but also go over problem sets which is important for exam preparation. The exam is often the only grade for most courses, so it is important to use the whole semester to prepare for it.

As far as the classes themselves go, they are fairly similar to how many of the Drexel courses I've had are. The Operations Management lecture is similar to some of the larger lecture sections I've had at Drexel such as Business 101/102, Psych 101; in which the class consists mainly of the professor lecturing from their slides, with very little interaction from the students. In the Exercise and Tutorial classes it is somewhat more interactive, or at least there is more opportunity to ask questions of the instructor, however, even in these sections there isn't a whole lot of discussion or participation from students.

The MIS class is a little bit different, in that it is a smaller lecture, maybe about 80-90 students or so, whereas the OPM lecture section is well over 300 students. These class sizes are still bigger than Drexel, where many lectures such as Econ or Accounting classes will be around 60 students, and larger lectures maybe 150-200 people. Other than having more students and being less interactive, the classes here are fairly similar to their American equivalents.

I've included a picture of the Schönbrunn Palace from my recent weekend visit to Vienna. I'll talk a bit more about travel in my upcoming posts. Auf wiedersehen!