What image do you have when you think of : Beer and sausage?  If you these words come out in your head, you don’t know well about .  There are something special than you have thought.  The Sookmyung Times met Grit Haedicke, German exchange student, talked about real .

How Come You Came to ?

 I’m studying my major that takes three years and the third year has to be somewhere abroad.  It doesn’t matter where, but you have to go somewhere abroad.  And I would thinking of going to India, but some people having experience going to India said that’s not a good idea.  Also, I didn’t want to go to Spanish speaking country because I already know Spanish.  So I wanted to learn something new and I wanted to go far away.  So I decided to go because we have two exchange universities; One is Korea University and the other is Sookmyung Women’s University.  I first applied to Korea University , but there were so many students.  Therefore they changed me to go Sookmyung Women’s University.  That’s how I came here.  But I wasn’t prepared for coming here; I didn’t study Korean at all.

1.What is Difference between German and Korean University Life?

 The main difference is we mostly have lectures so you do not have to go there.  It’s not obligatory to go to the lecture.  So if you want you can stay of the whole semester and just take the final exam.  Mostly we have final exam, but we do not have any midterm exam.  When you doing a seminar or tutorial, you have presentation, papers and reading assignments; but that’s just in the seminar which is obligatory to go.  And so it’s more stressful here to do all the assignments than back in .  But I think, for me, here is nice because I can choose my courses; Back in , I have a plan what I should do and which courses that I have to take.  I have to take some Economics courses because I’m major in Economics.  But I can choose courses.  For me, it’s better. 

The difference is probably my semester which is changing.  Because my first semester, I had 37 hours in University.  I was whole day long on weekend in University.  In my last semester I had only three courses, so I could work a lot and I could do my sports and everything, so it’s not like same amount of semester, but you can choose how you want to put it; so you can do more courses in one and less in the other semester.  Basically in , people say that the food in University is pretty bad.  But I think it’s cheap and so a lot of people go there.  They can have one meal a day without paying much.  There are lot of noodles like Italian style noodles with tomato and meat.  Then we have lot of schnitzel, potatoes, potato gratin and pizza.  And meals are changing every day and there are three meals:  meat, fish and vegetarian.  So you can choose.  You can have the meal from the day before cheaper.  So basically there are four meals and you can choose side dishes.  And we have salad bar, you just pay the plate and then you can put on the plate whatever you want.        

 2.Which Place Do You Want to Recommend to Korean Students If They Travel to ?

 That’s pretty difficult depending on what people want to see.  Typical place would be Munich .  Because everybody knows it for the beer and barbarian style and it’s pretty nice.  Also, I don’t like it that much.  I like more where the place I’m studying.  It’s very pretty and it’s UNESCO world heritage.  It has very small houses and is old city.  And I would recommend Berlin which is such a great city.  You can see so many different people coming from all over the world.  And everyone is different and they don’t care how you look like or what you are.  They just come up to you and have fun with you.  There are some beautiful places you should to in the black forest, countryside, it is very beautiful.  Alphs is also beautiful; some people say it’s boring because it is only mountain.  And if you want to see some of the history, you should go eastern part of .  Because when you travel to the western part and then you go to the eastern part, you still see the difference.  There are a lot of old buildings and there is nobody living in there.  All is empty and destroyed.  I recommend people to go there to just see a country like also has problems.  You can see still that there are problems after the reunification and still it’s not finished. 

3.Germany is very famous for and Oktoberfest and sausage and beer.  Have you ever been there? 

 I can just tell you what its like because I have never been there.  Because for me its too much people, too much beer and too much drunk people.  And a lot of foreigners go there, drink and be drunk.  Basically, you have those tents and it open up at 9 and they already close 10.  Because there are so many people and you have to line up early in the morning to get in there.  Otherwise you will not get in whole day.  Normally, tables are reserved but people are moving around and you can sit somewhere.  And it only serves 1L glasses so you can’t buy smaller amounts.

4.For Korean Students Who Do Not Know About , Could You Explain ?

 I lived three different part of .  Every part you go, people are different.  They say people in the North are grumpier.  But once they like you, they will like you life long.  In the south, they say they are friendlier to the people.  There are a lot of cliché about Germany but still it is true that we are pretty punctual, correct; everything has to go this way, because maybe if it is not right way someone will be getting angry.  And most of Germans are workaholic.  Also, everyone has a hobby: doing music, sport and having some kind of interest.  Germans like traveling and they love to speak language.  We always trying when we hear that someone speaks another language just try to talk to them.  We automatically try to speak in other languages.  And is nice place to go.  Mostly it is different from what people think.   

Shin Won Sora