Classes in Berlin!

I thought I’d give you a little update on all of my classes here in Germany:

Berlin in Literature: The paper that I just wrote for this class was 6 pages, and the topic was Bertolt Brecht.  There were three options that we could write about: a biography of Brecht, an analysis of his poetry, or an analysis of his play “die Dreigroschenoper” (The Threepenny Opera).  I chose to do an analysis of the play, and I think I like where I went with the paper – hopefully I made some good arguments and it makes sense in German!

Other than the paper, we’ve just been reading excerpts of books and poetry that either take place in Berlin or were written while the author was living in Berlin.  We haven’t read a full book yet, although I’m pretty sure since now that it’s after midterms, that we’ll read at least one entire book.  I think my midterm went okay in this class.  It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I know I didn’t do horribly!

 

Theater in Berlin: This is the class that’s probably the most work intensive, since we read (and see) one play every week.  I’m actually enjoying this class possibly more than my other ones.  We’ve read 3 plays and seen 4 (we didn’t read the first one), and I’ve liked all of them except one.  This class has offered many opportunities for cultural experiences, so that’s good!  We have to read another play by Wednesday, which is another Brecht play.  It seems relatively interesting, but Brecht is kind of a weird guy – so hopefully it’s okay!

My midterm in this class went pretty well (I think)! I was able to answer all of the questions without having to make anything up, which is always good!

 

German: Honestly, I am not enjoying my German class.  I’m also not doing spectacularly in it, because I’m not interested in what we’re learning about.  We’ve had to write a few essays, which I’ve actually done pretty well on (she really liked my last one!).  But we’ve taken two tests, which I haven’t done brilliantly on.  Our midterm for this class was a presentation and a paper and I’m not too worried about it, because I think it went pretty well.

 

Art and Architecture: This class is…interesting.  The teacher is super nice and passionate about art, but he tends to ramble on and on, which makes him really hard to follow.  We also tend to just look at paintings and talk a little bit about them, without really learning about the artistic movement that the painting belongs to.

 

Internship Seminar:  This class only meets once a week so that we have time to go to our internships, which is really nice!  We’ve been learning about the social market economy and other stuff to do with the economy, so it’s been kind of interesting because I don’t usually take classes like this!  Our midterms are a presentation on a topic that we got to choose (mine is on people with disabilities and their integration into society).  I just had my presentation today, and I think it went pretty well!  My practicum is at a school for disabled kids in Berlin – I’ll probably write more about it later!