I'm two weeks into semester now and I thought I'd try to make a bit of a comparison between TU in Berlin and UQ in Brisbane. The biggest difference I've noticed is the workload, the lectures I have here are all at least two hours long and there are plenty of them! A full time workload is five subjects rather than four and some have up to eight contact hours a week. The other big difference is the assessment - most subjects just have one big exam at the end that's worth 100% of your mark. Plus, uni's free over here so I guess they're not as well-funded, there are less small classes like tutorials. One thing that's really great at TU is that they realise students are poor! Not only is uni free, you can eat really cheaply in the mensa, the TU equivalent of the UQ refectory. Overall, my first impression of TU is that you really have to motivate yourself and learn independently. They don't always give you homework or assignments to work on, you just have to pull out a textbook. Forget lecture recordings and, for most subjects, prepared lecture slides. It's usually just a guy up the front writing on a blackboard. At first I found it hard to keep up, but now I'm glad because having to write everything down keeps me awake for the full two hours! Anyway, that's my comparison based on first impressions, to be continued as semester progresses...

I've just finished my first week of uni and it was hectic! The study load over here is huge, I have up to eight contact hours a week for each subject and I'm doing five. Plus they go through everything really, really fast. The subjects all seem like good matches with what I'd be studying in Australia, so I've been lucky there. Anyway, I'd better get back to studying, we'll see how this all pans out!

Starting uni tomorrow, not really sure what to expect other than a massive workload. It seems like we're the only exchange students here who have to do a full load at tub, it's 5 subjects that all look really huge. So it's going to be a challenge, but I'm still looking forward to trying something new. Plus hopefully meeting more Germans and improving my language skills.