University starts again… I nearly die of anxiety.

This last week was absolutely crazy. I’d wanted to write something about it during the weekend, but I didn’t even know where to begin…

The first week of my second year at University.

One week before University started, the necessary information for the students to make their schedules was released online. In addition to our main course (the major), we have to take a minor as well, a few selected subjects from another course to complement our own. You can take whatever minor from whatever course you want, obviously, but my idea was to get something (anything, really) that was specifically useful in terms of employment. Since this is supposed to be a three year course, and since I’m already on my second year, I figured it was time to start taking the minor, and so started my search for one on the University’s website. 

And so…

German studies! How both useful and awesome would that be! The webpage for the German minor sounded really interesting. I would have three language classes (three levels of German, that is) and three cultural classes. I went ahead and enrolled on all my mandatory subjects, as well as on three from the German minor: a couple of levels on the language, and something a bit more cultural, “German Media Studies”. Awesome.

I had everything ready by the time University started, and all the motivation in the world as well. I had no idea how stressful… well, let’s go slowly.

After attending a few classes, which all went okay by the way, it was time for my first German language class. I was so excited! I’d been told all sorts of things about what to expect, and I expected it to be awesome. When the teacher first walked into the classroom, he said “guten tag”. I knew it meant hello, and I assumed most people there knew as well, since we all said “guten tag” back. So cute, he was speaking in German with us already! Then he sat down, and started speaking in German. I mean, really started speaking in German. So I thought he was trying to be funny, maybe he wanted to scare us with his fluency, to let us how well he could speak the language and how clueless we were. But then, some of the students started speaking in German back at him. I mean, really started speaking in German back at him.

Oh scheißen.

I checked my schedule to see if I was in the right classroom. Maybe I made a wrong turn and ended up in the advanced class. Because there was no way that thing was a beginner’s class. It wasn’t, I got that one right. But I was in the right classroom. That was the correct class, the one I enrolled in, and the one supposedly for beginners.

When our teacher Rölf was chatting with a couple of students about I have absolutely no idea what, this boy sitting in the row behind me shyly touched my shoulder. I looked back, and he had the same “oh scheißen” face as I did. I knew I wasn’t the only one then. Basically, there were about 10 students who had never had German classes before in an advanced German class.

These subjects usually have very explicit and clear requirements. You can’t enroll in an advanced language course if you’ve never had contact with the said language before, you need to be a certain level, it makes sense. But the webpage about the German class was wrong, as it said there no requirements at all. Around 10 of us got screwed over it. Rölf was really nice and gracious about it, he said he would get someone to come to his next class with us so as to explain what had happened, maybe help us find a solution. I didn’t bother though. There was no solution. That was the German minor, and the only possible way out for us was to go learn beginner German on some institution and then come back. Until then, I couldn’t finish my course. I would waste one or two years because of German.

The real stress began there. First, I had to find myself a new minor to take. Then, I had to remake my whole schedule for both semesters. No matter how fast I was, I would inevitably lose the first classes of whatever minor I chose. Missing the first classes, just so you know, is never good. My motivation dropped like crazy. What a wonderful way to start my second year at University.

Communication Studies. Not as useful and versatile as German, but still useful. A minor in Communication Studies it was. The German incident was on a Monday, and on Tuesday I was in my first “Sociology of Media Studies” class, even without being enrolled in it (I could do that later anyway, most teachers don’t mind the technicalities during the first few weeks). I have to say it wasn’t what I was expecting and looking for, but it was still interesting. Next day, I had the chance of going to another class of that minor, “Semiotics”. Long story short, I left in the middle of the class and went home to research some more minors.

I could definitely feel the stress rising, and was completely desperate. Needless to say, my motivation had sunk to the scheißen-iest level possible.

A Translation minor. This one had to work. The classes all seemed useful and realistic, they would complement my own course very well, and fit into my schedule perfectly. Again, it wasn’t as awesome as German, but it worked according to my standards. I just went to my first class today actually, and I think I’ll be alright… Which doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t mourn German for a while and feel disappointed. I’ll have enough work to keep me distracted anyway, I’m sure.

I’ll go an enroll myself again first thing tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.