Erasmus Report
Ever since I heard about the idea of taking a year abroad, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I
had taken German all the way to A Level, as well as a course in the Language Centre in my
second year, so going to Germany was the obvious choice. It was an amazing opportunity, and
has given me so many experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Accommodation
I chose to be allocated student accommodation. It was very easy and certainly cheaper than
finding my own would have been. The only real downside for me however is that they do tend to
put international students together, which made it difficult to practise my German. Some of my
flatmates knew no German when they arrived, so the only option in those cases was to
communicate in English. One thing it did mean though, was that it was even easier to make
friends, and get to know the other international students. I did find that the Erasmus people did
tend to stick together, although I intentionally tried to avoid those who were content to just speak
English all the time, and in fact there was a significant number who wanted to be speaking and
practising their German all the time, so I didn’t feel like I missed out too much.
Getting a Bike
The vast majority of students in Göttingen go everywhere by bike, and having one certainly
made everything easier. They do have a bike auction at the start of the semester, but I arrived
six weeks before that, so wanted to get a bike sooner. You can hire bikes, but I ended up buying
one from an old Erasmus student who had already left, which I think is what a lot people ended
up doing. I was told very early on that Göttingen is a very safe city, the only real crime anyone
ever hears about is bike theft. So the advice given to me was to not spend too much money on
a bike, but to be sure you’ve got a really strong lock, and this served me well. My student
accommodation was in the north of the city, and the maths department is in the south, so I
cycled everyday. Göttingen has lots of designated cycle paths, so it was very easy, although the
police can stop and fine you if you don’t have lights at night, are cycling the wrong way up one
of the one-way streets, or if you’ve had too much to drink, something I know caught a couple of
people out.
Pre-Semester Language Course
The pre-semester language course was quite good. It helped my German, although to be
honest not as much as I maybe would have liked. The main advantage of doing it though, was
that it was a great chance to meet other students, and they did organise a lot of evening
activities and weekend trips, which I would definitely recommended getting involved with. The
only real drawback of the course for me was the cost, I paid €500 which is obviously a lot of
money, although I certainly don’t regret doing it.
Studying in Germany
I found that my German was more than good enough to follow the lectures, the biggest
challenge was the maths itself, which I did find generally harder than at Warwick. They also
have weekly assignment sheets for the bigger modules, and an exercise class each week to go
through the previous week’s questions. In order to be allowed to take the exam at the end of the
semester, you had to have averaged at least 50% on the assignment sheets and also presented
at least one solution in the exercise class. Something which I found to be quite daunting to
begin with, although they were very understanding of my imperfect German.
The lectures were of a very similar style to Warwick, although they were 90 minutes long and
only twice a week, something which I actually quite liked, as it meant fewer trips across the city
to the maths department. Something I liked rather less was the early starts; the first lectures of
the day were at 8am, which definitely took some getting used to.
Choosing modules wasn’t particularly easy. Everything is online and I found it hard to get an
idea of everything that was in each module from the descriptions given, although the Erasmus
coordinator in the maths department was very helpful.
Many of the more advanced courses, that third or fourth years were taking, are taught in
English. I didn’t think I should just take the second/third year modules, as such I began by going
to Algorithmic Game Theory, Inverse Problems and Introduction to PDEs, as well as Primzahlen
and Differenzial- und Integralrechnungen III in German. I found Algorithmic Game Theory to be
a very accessible module, that I enjoyed a lot. I quickly dropped Inverse Problems, as it was too
advanced and didn’t interest me very much. The PDEs module began fine, however after the
second week or so, it became much more complicated and I found it too difficult. I eventually
decided to drop it, and do something else, but I ended up feeling too far behind in any other
module, so just decided to go back to it. In hindsight, I think I would have found it easier to catch
up in a different, easier module, than to try to struggle through, and ultimately failing.
I would recommend going to as many modules as possible in the first week, to get the best idea
of what you want to do, and asking the lecturers exactly what will be in the module, as some of
them didn’t say in the first lecturer, and Diff III for instance, ended up being more about
manifolds than anything else.
The second semester went a lot smoother. I knew I wanted to do more German, so I took three
language courses in grammar, writing and speaking, I enjoyed them a lot, and probably should
have done some in the first semester. They are very popular though, and often oversubscribed
within an hour of being available to register. I did find however, as with every other module,
people dropped out after the first couple of weeks, so if you were on the waiting list, it was
sometimes possible to talk to the teacher and take the class anyway, something that happened
to me for the speaking module.
In terms of maths, I took Angewandte Statistik, Maß-und Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie and Zum
Mathematik im 19. Jahrhundert. I was forewarned that the measure theory module was one of
the toughest, however I think the biggest challenge was how much was in it, and how quickly
the lecturer moved through the material.
Unfortunately taking maths modules meant the exams were later than everything else. I did
originally have an exam scheduled for the middle of August, which I had to rearrange with the
lecturer to take as an oral exam before I left. Almost all of the exams gave two possible dates,
within a week or two of the end of lectures, or else just before the start of the next semester.
Obviously for the summer semester, I didn’t really have much choice, although I would normally
recommend taking the earlier option anyway because, although you have very little revision
time, the lecturer knows this, and everyone told me the early exam is always noticeably easier.
Outside of studying
There are plenty of things to do when you’re not studying. Göttingen doesn’t have all the
societies that Warwick has, however it does have a big sports centre. It doesn’t cost much to
join and they’ve got a lot of facilities as well as exercises classes and sports teams to get
involved with.
I would also recommend going out in the local area; after visiting a local village, Ebergötzen, a
small group of us ended up being invited back to their Kirmes festival where we spent the whole
day talking to the locals, being shown round the local villages and being given lots of beer and
currywurst. It was a really lovely day, which ended up being one of the highlights of the whole
year.
The International Office is very good as well, they organizes trips and activities, often for free, so
for example, I visited a local brewery and went ice skating. They do offer weekend excursions
as well and longer trips to cities in Germany. The semester card is also really good for travelling
around Germany as it is basically a railcard for the whole of Niedersachsen, making trips to
Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover very easy and very cheap to get to.
Doing the Erasmus year gave me experiences I'd never otherwise have had, for example it
happened to be the 300th anniversary of the union between Hannover and the UK, (when
George I became King), so to mark the occasion, Prince Andrew visited the city, and I was one
of the students given the chance to meet him. I even ended up on the local news that was
covering the event.
Summary
Looking back I definitely had an amazing year. Although I did learn some maths, meeting so
many interesting people, visiting interesting places and improving my German skills are what I’m
really takíng away from the year. I’ve made some really good friends, and have already been
back visiting them. I would recommend taking an Erasmus year to anyone. It wasn’t always
easy, but it was most definitely worthwhile.