A Semester in Berlin: Exploring the Culture, City, and Language Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

On-site administration of your program

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

I was very satisfied with my housing, but I found my apartment on my own and did not use Middlebury's optional provided housing. Therefore this rating is not reflective of Middlebury's housing options.

The food in Berlin and at the university was delicious! It was sometimes difficult to find vegetarian options, however.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

I would have liked more opportunities to explore Berlin as a group with the other Middlebury study abroad students and program administrators. Much of our culture course was online and I would have welcomed more hands-on experience applying what we learned in this culture course to actual day-to-day life in Berlin.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I found the Middlebury program to be extremely helpful and responsive to my health needs. I always felt that there was Middlebury personell available 24 hours a day for me if I were to need them in an emergency.

I felt very safe while in Berlin. There were some attacks in Germany during the time that I was there, and immediately following each of these attacks, our program director contacted us each individually to make sure that we were all right.

I enjoyed the Middlebury study abroad program. The directors were available and willing to help, the other students in the course were friendly, and the resources at Freie Universitaet such as the library and the Mensa (the dining hall) were freely available to me. It felt very liberating to be a student at a university in Berlin; much more so than at my home college, where everything is located on campus. While this is very convenient, having to travel across the city in Berlin just to get to class really made me familiar with the city and the culture abroad.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

Berlin is not an expensive city. I was able to survive very easily on a student's budget in Berlin. There are so many things to do in Berlin, though, that it was easy to spend money on a day out in town or at restaurants or exploring a beach. The Middlebury program reimbursed us for culturally relevant expenses (such as museums, exhibitions, concerts, etc.).

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

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• Apartment

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• International Students
• Other

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• Local Students

• Language Immersion
• Critical Cultural Analysis

• I feel that my writing tutors did not prepare me as well as they could have for the final submission of my essays. With only a few days to go, I was still a few pages short of the minimum requirement for one of my essays. Instead of alerting me to this fact or giving me suggestions on where I could expand my writing, my tutor instead dutifully corrected what I had written. I never quite knew if they though that what I had written was satisfactory, or if they were simply changing it to be grammatically correct, though the content or organization was not at the desired level.

The Academic or Linguist