Guest article by Maria:Połowa! My name is Maria and I'm studying management/business administration in Gdansk for a semester.
At the end of September, I was one of the last of our class to board the train - not the plane, like most of the others - to start my semester abroad. Integrated into the curriculum from the outset, this was one of the predominant reasons for me to become a student of culture and management at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences in 2013. Why Gdansk? I love the Baltic Sea. I felt that "management" had been neglected in my studies so far. I already know and like Poland so well from 2 years in Görlitz that I should be spared a culture shock. I had reliably heard the following two statements from friends and acquaintances who had already traveled to Gdansk when I talked about my semester abroad: "Oh, Gdansk is soooo beautiful! Lucky you!" and "You don't even need English there, they all speak German!"THINK! Not a single member of the dormitory staff speaks a word of English. The rooms (small), the showers (2 for the entire floor), the kitchen (zero equipment, no pot, no pan, nada)!!!! As an EU citizen who intends to study here for a ridiculous 4 months, I have to register with the voivodeship AND the city? With forms that have to be filled out entirely in Polish? One head-shaking "That's-not-serious!" followed the next in the first week, as did the numerous Erasmus welcome events, of which I attended exactly one. This rather disastrous mood lasted almost exactly one week, then the joy of being able to live in this beautiful city won out. Establishing contact with Polish students / young people was more difficult than expected, but in the meantime a small but nice circle of people has formed who will hopefully stay with me for longer than one semester. Further proof of the successfully completed assimilation process: when ordering my favorite coffee in my favorite café, the new waitress actually mistook me for a Polish woman!
As for my actual raison d'être: my university attendance target is 25 hours. Per month! The level of the courses feels lower than in Görlitz and is therefore good to manage despite the foreign language. Maybe I was lucky in my choice of courses, but perhaps the lecturers here actually have a different approach to working with students in general. You often get the feeling that the lecturers are mainly interested in the personal development of the students rather than teaching theoretical content. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I personally like it.
After just two weeks, I knew that I would sorely miss having the sea right on my doorstep back home in Germany. Maybe you should think about doing a Master's degree in Gdansk? Supported by:
