Hallo again! In this blog, I want to talk about something that is pretty important for American students studying in Germany: The Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Yes, that's a big word, in typical German style they combine a few words into one long one. In this case, the Aufenthaltserlaubnis is a Foreign Residence Permit that is required since the semester abroad lasts more than 3 months (90 days), the legal amount of time you can stay in Germany before needing to have your temporary residence extended.

When you first enter the country, the immigration officers always ask how long you will be staying, and when as a student you say that you are staying until December, they will probably remind you about this residence permit since August to December (the length of the fall semester) is more than the 90 days. I had an immigration office who maybe wasn't too happy it was 7:30 in the morning on a Monday morning, and was a bit rude in telling me about the permit, and mistranslated it to calling it a "Visa", which it isn't. As an American you don't need a visa to enter or study abroad for a term in Germany.

Instead, after your arrival you must make an appointment with the foreign registration, which is located in the government building in the K7 block of Mannheim (same building, different floor as the city registration office where you will go in your first week to register with the city of Mannheim- see my earlier blog posts about that). You are supposed to make the appointment by calling them, however, I tried calling their main phone number plus individual employee's extensions and never got an answer. If this happens, the International Office in L1 (where you enroll at the University) can help you set up the appointment.

For the appointment, make sure you have everything you need to bring with you, including your passport, Proof of your enrollment at the University (Studienbescheinigung), a bank statement showing you have more than 670 Euros (I just took an American bank statement so while it was in U.S. Dollars not Euros the conversion would have been more than 670 Euro and they never said anything about this), Proof of Health Insurance (Whether you purchased German insurance or got a waiver saying your American insurance is enough to cover you), A Biometric Passport photo (I had an extra from when I renewed my passport before my departure, if you don't have an extra there is a machine there that can take them), The Welcome Letter from the University, and your rental contract with your Apartment or Student Residence. There is also a form that you need to fill out, this form is available there; ask for it when you first arrive, as I didn't, and filled it out after already waiting for a half hour, then once it was filled out I had to wait again while they processed it, so you might save time by asking for it upfront.

The people that work there will definitely not go out of their way to be nice to you, so I would make sure you have everything in order, otherwise they will be even less happy. Also, be prepared to wait quite a while, just like dealing with government entities in the States, the famous German efficiency doesn't quite exist at the foreign registration office. Once you are all done, they will give back your passport with the residence permit added to your Stamp/Visa pages. Make sure they do not try to charge you- as a student with the Welcome Letter the permit does not cost you anything. The one lady in the office tried to send me to the cashier downstairs to pay, so make sure you don't. They barely speak English but just make sure they know you are a student- it should be obvious from the paperwork from the University, but to her it must not have been. This appointment isn't fun, but it is necessary so just be prepared.

Until next time then, auf wiedersehen!

(Picture is from Düsseldorf about three weeks ago).

Hallo again! In this blog post, I want to talk a bit more about the classes here in Mannheim, and more specifically, to compare them to what I am used to at Drexel, as they are somewhat different. One of the big differences of course between Drexel and mannheim is the length of the semester/term itself as Drexel uses the quarter system, and mannheim uses a traditional semester system like many other schools in both Europe and the U.S. This makes for a semester that really feels much more relaxed, which is a nice change, but also strange. While the ten week terms at Drexel make for a more rushed and stressful term, I am quite used to this now, so coming to a school that has longer terms just seems a bit different. I feel as though I should already be rushing to get all of the work complete and begin studying for exams, but really they are still over a month away.

Another big difference between the two schools is the workload. Since most classes in mannheim only consist of a final exam to determine your grade, there isn't much work to do during the semester, other than going to class and reviewing what you've learned. This is very different from Drexel where some classes have two or even three midterm exams plus quizzes, projects, and homework assignments, all while being compressed over the ten week term. With mannheim only having the final exam, the workload during the semester is much lighter than at Drexel, but come final exam time will probably be a bit more stressful since the exam counts for the entire grade in the class.

The classes themselves are a little bit different from the way classes are taught at Drexel, but not all that different. Like Drexel, most of my professors/instructors choose to teach from a PowerPoint, and mostly lecture at the class, with some occasional questions/discussions from the students. Also like Drexel, mannheim has grad/PhD/upper level students that teach in addition to the professors. Usually at Drexel the TA's will teach or assist instead of the professor one day a week or so, but at mannheim they actually instruct the entire exercise and tutorial class sections of the courses, which are like the recitations we have at Drexel for lecture classes.

Hopefully that gives you a good idea about the classes here, and for prospective study abroad students, you can see that studying at mannheim or a similar semester school might be a nice change from the fast paced quarters at Drexel. In my next blog post I'll try to explain more about the exams and how they are graded, since this is a pretty important part of the study part of studying abroad, especially since so many classes here are only made up of the final exam grade and nothing else. Until then, auf wiedersehen!

(Picture is of the museum part of the Schloss- the main university building of Mannheim. This section of the building was restored to the way it would have been before the university acquired it and does not have classrooms like the other wings do.)

Hallo everyone. In this blog post, I want to talk a bit about safety and security in Europe, as there are definitely some differences between Europe and the United States when it comes to safety. In general, I have found that Europe is quite a bit safer than the u.s. Coming from the Philadelphia area and Drexel especially, where there are always police around and where there are quite a few nonviolent crimes committed, and occasionally some violent ones, Europe is much different.

Not just Drexel, but a lot of universities and colleges in the U.S. Have their own security departments and many have actual police departments, especially urban schools like Drexel, temple, U Penn, etc. in addition to the Philadelphia police. I'm not even sure if the university of mannheim has it's own security department, let alone police. I have never seen this in and around the campus, while at Drexel you see security presence all the time.

This is really thanks to the fact that there just seem to be less crimes in Europe. Cities min Germany like mannheim, Stuttgart, Munich are much safer with much less crimes and significantly less violent crimes than comparably sized cities in the u.s. Even a city like Frankfurt, which apparently has some of the highest crime in Germany per capita is much less than most American cities of its size, and most of the crimes committed there are financial crimes and robberies thanks to the heavy amount of banking that occurs there.

As a result, the police presence in most cities is not seen nearly as much as I am used to coming from the u.s. They're around, just not as many as in the states since there is less need. You will however see lots of police in very popular tourist spots in high profile cities, such as Paris. There are many police in the area of the Eiffel Tower for example, as this is such a major tourist attraction and a potential target. Often these police walk around with bulletproof vests and semi automatic rifles to deter any potential activity.

Europeans are also more causal about their personal safety, for example you can often see people leave their bags unattended while they go throw away trash or use the bathroom on the train. This is something I would never do in the us, especially if I have my laptop or tablet in the bag, I would always take something like that with me wherever I go, but Europeans are less worried about having their things stolen. While it certainly never hurts to be over cautious, most Europeans would probably think that us Americans are a bit paranoid when it comes to personal safety and security of our belongings.

Since I mentioned Frankfurt, I will include a picture from a visit there a few weeks back, in which you can see that the city is really not dangerous at all. I would certainly say it is safer than American cities of a similar size (Frankfurt isn't actually as big as you'd think, there are around 670,000 residents there). So until next time, auf wiedersehen!