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Reflections on My Year Abroad in Leipzig, Germany
By Miranda Dreisin (Universität Leipzig, Germany) Summer has always been a bittersweet time for me. The weather is beautiful and life is more exciting, but for the past three years, it has marked the end of a chapter. This time round, it marks the end of my year abroad in Germany, and in a year it will mark the end of my degree. I am very lucky to still have just over a month left of my year abroad as the academic year finishes in late July in Germany for most people, including me. I do however have exams right until the end of July, which I find quite frustrating,…
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Where Sustainability Isn’t a Trend – It’s Just Germany
By Miranda Dreisin (Universität Leipzig, Germany) I had a friend visiting me recently in Germany, and on an afternoon walk through one of Leipzig’s most beautiful parks, she asked me if the entire city had randomly woken up that morning and decided to go cycling. It was that comment that made me realise that the sustainability that had initially suprised me, had become something I had slowly stopped noticing. Living in Germany has made eco friendliness seem like less of an occasional effort, and more like a consistent everyday expectation. The Culture of Recycling One of the first things I noticed after arriving in Germany was the recycling system –…
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Learning A Third Language in My Second on My Year Abroad: First Impressions
By Miranda Dreisin, (Universität Leipzig, Germany) I grew up only speaking English in an area where a lot of other people spoke another language fluently at home, and I distinctly remember from childhood wishing I were able to do the same. I was put in a German class in Year 7, and really enjoyed it, and by the time I was 16, being able to be proficient in another language was very important to me. I thus chose A-Level German, and at 18, decided to carry that passion through to degree level. Three years later, I am now studying in Germany, where having learnt another language from scratch is hardly…
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Returning to the Bloc: Student Life in One of Leipzig’s GDR Plattenbaus
By Miranda Dreisin, (Universität Leipzig, Germany) Living in Leipzig means living among history – and in my case, inside it – in an apartment block defined by the housing policies of communist East Germany. My block belongs to a type of housing called Plattenbau, roughly translating to a prefabricated building or an industrial apartment block. For decades, Leipzig stood on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain, shaped by the socialist policies of the German Democratic Republic. When I chose to spend my year abroad here, it was a choice influenced by my desire to better understand the history that is strongly written into the city. Leipzig’s Communist Past From…
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Prague in Winter: The Best Things to See and Do
By Miranda Dreisin (Universität Leipzig, Germany) One of the best things about living in Central Europe is how easy it is to travel – often on a whim, and usually without much hassle. Last month, I planned myself a very last minute weekend trip to Prague, which is only around 3 hours drive from Leipzig, Germany where I am currently studying. I took a cheap FlixBus before sunrise, and woke up having already arrived in the Czech Republic. I’d only visited Prague once before, and that was in summer, so I was curious to see how to make the most of a winter visit in just two days. I unfortunately…
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A Great Start to My Year Abroad in Leipzig, Germany
By Miranda Dreisin (Universität Leipzig, Germany) Like many language students, I had eagerly anticipated my year abroad since the start of my degree, and it was a key reason as to why I decided to study a language at University. However, with the end of second year, and the progression of summer, I quickly became daunted by the prospect of moving to a city where I had never been before, where I didn’t know anyone, and where I was to be studying a degree in a different language. The main thing that significantly reduced my stress was the bureaucratic preparation I did in advance and it allowed me a much…
A study abroad journal by students, for students.
