My School Life in Germany

Hello friends. This is Natalie from the Cultural Broadcasting Team! Today´s post is a follow-up to my last post about the school system in Germany. If you want to take a deeper look into this topic, please check it out! Arigatou!

Today I wish to share my personal experience concerning my journey through the school system of my country. Please enjoy!

I already knew stuff, students typically wouldn´t learn until elementary school. Since my mother worked there, she really made an effort to improve my level of knowledge and skills. Thus I took a pre-school English-learning course. Also, I went to a protestant kindergarten because of my family´s beliefs, but a child´s religion doesn´t really matter when entering any kind of kindergarten.
 

When I turned 6 years old, I entered “Grundschule” (elementary school). On the first day of school, there is a tradition, where first-graders are presented with a special gift called “Zuckertüte” (literally: “sugar bag”), which usually contains sweets, school items and other presents, like games or a plush. After a small ceremony, every child gets to see the school building and class-rooms before starting classes the next day.

I was one of the lucky students who were able to learn English at school starting at first grade. My elementary education also included courses about German, mathematics, physical education, music, crafting and general knowledge. As for me, I loved to participate in music class, because my teacher taught me how to play the flute. Together, me and my classmates sang songs, played instruments and learned the basics about the rules behind music pieces. Since I had so much fun, I later decided to practice playing the violin, that I still love playing to this day. Many of my friends were gifted in that way, so they joined orchestras and took part in contests. I joined an orchestra too, but music was more like a hobby to me, so I did not focus on it too much.

After four years of elementary education, I became able to attend “Gymnasium” (a more academic school that combines middle school and high school). From there on I – like my friends there – got the opportunity to study more science and society-based subjects like physics, geography, economics and history.  Eventually, I had to choose a third language besides German and English. Out of French, Russian and Spanish, I decided to learn French, but I stopped after four years, because I was more interested in Latin, which was taught from grade 9 and on. My school also had a planetarium on campus that our annual school´s festival revolves around.

In the state where I grew up, students were able to pick the five topics that they wanted to be questioned about concerning their “Abiturprüfung”, a Gymnasium´s finals. The basics that usually everyone chooses are German, English and mathematics. Additionally I chose biology, out of interest, and economics in order to prepare myself for my bachelor´s studies, that I am undertaking right now.

Although I graduated from Gymnasium more than two years ago, I still wear my school´s shirt. In Germany there are no uniforms, but some schools offer to buy pieces of clothing designed by them. Universities offer it too.

Now I want to tell you something about my studies I mentioned before. I had to take two entry exams and was interviewed by two teams of the university´s staff in order to be accepted, which is quite unusual for Germany. The only thing one has to provide a university with in order to attend it, is a certain average that needs to be fulfilled by the A-Level exam´s grades, for the more common fields of interest.

However, after passing the tests, I moved to Ludwigshafen and began the pretty unique combination of studying Japanese and management for my bachelor´s degree. During those studies, we usually undergo one whole year of studying abroad – in my case in Japan – which is how I got to know about Kansai Gaidai University. Sadly, I was, and we all were, not able to go to Japan this year. But I am so happy that  was accepted for the next semester, maybe we can then!

While attending university, many students participate in volunteer work like organizing workshops, helping people in need or taking an active part in the university´s politics. In the last two years I tried to support many causes. For example: I helped in organizing my dormitory´s matters, was elected as the head of HRM of my university´s student´s committee and have now joined Kansai Gaidai´s Cultural Broadcasting Team in order to make your time at our university as pleasant as possible.

After graduating, I want to study “International Human Resource Management” in order to achieve a Master´s degree, so that I can work in an international company, supporting the staff. I am also considering becoming a politician, but I have to put some more thought into it.

What about you and your school life? I would love to talk about it at our upcoming events, so please check them out if you are interested!

Anyways, thank you so much for reading! Have a nice day!

Yours,

 Natalie from Cultural Broadcasting Team