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Saturday, February 23. 2008
So... time to close this blog. This will officially be the last entry. I'd like to thank all readers for reading (I couldn't believe how many hits I had sometimes) and commenting. I hope I could encourage some people to go abroad.
I might be starting some more blogging activity... but then, I might not. Au revoir, and goodbye.
Martin
Saturday, February 23. 2008
Cryptic title? Well, it's not correct, anyway. I will write a comparison, that's true, but it's extremely subjective.
First of all, I can't really compare the universities as such. I can only compare my personal experience in both of them. Which is, of course, heavily biased towards Karlsruhe because I spent more time there. In other words, this will be completely unreliable as a objective comparison.
First of all, let's have a look at the systems in general. In Germany, in order to study at a university, you need Abitur (what you get when you graduate from High School, usually at the age of 18-19). For an engineer, the formalities are simply. You can basically choose you university, fill in a form or two and you're in. A Master's equivalent degree (which used to be the Diplom, now we do a Master too) typically takes around 5 years to complete. Well, that's what the universities say. The guidelines for exams are really quite loose, and most students take longer to complete their degree. EE students at my uni finish on average after 11.5 semesters, while the official number of semesters you should need (We call it Regelstudienzeit) is 10. As I said, the rules are simple: You have to do a required number of exams, a diploma thesis and other stuff like 6 months of internship. You rarely have to turn up to lectures - if you can pass the exam without lectures, that's fine.
The first two years are pretty much the same for everyone (who decides to stick to the suggested curriculum) and consist of basics in mathematics, physics, logic, electronics and such lark. You may take up to 6 semesters to do all these exams, but you can also start taking other exams before you've finished. One important reason for this period is to reduce the number of students to a level which can be more easily coped with (not officially, of course). The number of students usually drops around 30-50% in my degree. Plus, if you've managed this phase you know you're clever enough to manage the rest. After that, you can start to diversify. The longer you study, the more freedom you get in choosing your subjects. Then, when you've done enough exams and you feel like it, you can do your diploma thesis which concludes your degree.
In France, the system is quite different. First of all, the universities as we have them here are not exactly the top of the educational system. The top notch comes from the Grandes Ecoles, and the Ecoles Centrales have quite good reputation. Getting into one of these is not that easy (except for Erasmus students). First of all, after you've done your bac (which is the equivalent to the Abitur, but French students are usually a year younger when they graduate), you can either go to uni or apply for the Classe Preparatoire (well, there are other options, but let's stick to these. Besides, I don't really know the system that well). If you want to go to a Ecole Centrale or likewise, you need Classe Prepa.
According to the people I asked, this must be the most horrible time in a students life. It usually goes on for 2 years and, like our Vordiplom (the first phase I talked about), teaches basics in maths, physics or whatever you need for your university (It depends on what you want to do after Classe Prepa, if you want to do economics you get other courses). I have no reason not to believe all the people who told me they had practically no free time, got bad marks no matter how good they were and so on.
Plus, it costs. You can't just sign up, you need to pay up, too. Obviously, you can't work the same time... so poor guys without scholarships will have a hard time here. But the thing is, if you pass, you really know some stuff. I had class with 12 other Prepa graduates, and most of them could do Fourier Transforms in their heads. Now, I personally believe that this is not exactly a skill worth having, but it does speed up lectures if basic mathematics can be considered understood.
The degree at Ecole Centrale takes three years. Practically everything is planned out for you, more like school than a German university - including sports and languages. The education is way more broad than that of a German engineer: There are courses for economics and even human resource management. Everything is taught, including programming. Most of these things are considered non-scientific in Germany, which means: students can teach themselves. So, this is a big difference: At Ecole Centrale, students are a lot more in classes, but they have less stuff to do at home than in Germany.
Before getting to year three, there are very little choices to be made: which languages you want to learn, which type of sport you'll do, little things like this.
Another reason this comparison is pretty subjective is the huge difference between degrees. In Germany, I am an EE student, with very little non-engineer subjects. After graduating, I'm supposed to know a little of all EE subjects and a great deal about one specific EE topic. Graduates from ECM (Ecole Centrale Marseille) are called Ingenieurs Generaliste - generalist engineer. The idea is, you know the basics of everything: computer science, chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, programming, electronics, signal processing... and so on. In 3rd year, you can specialise and get 6 months of subject-specific courses - but also courses everyone has to take, management stuff and that lark. You are educating future leaders, not specialists. It probably compares better to our Wirtschaftsingenieur, a mix between economics and engineering.
What I miss in Germany's universities (and possibly had too much of in France's) is loyalty towards the Alma Mater. When the University of Karlsruhe was declared 'Elite', everyone took the mick out of it. When ECM went 'Centrale', everyone was proud like someone very proud. In France, the effect is that the university creates a huge network: former students of this (or other) Ecoles Centrales bond. If your degree says 'Ecole Centrale' on the top, people won't start having a look at your grades.
Extra-curricular activities are tightly integrated into the Ecole-life, too. Of course these are not compulsory, but the main principle is to create a tight group anyway, so most people show up to at least some of the clubs, parties, concerts, theatre performances and whatever else there is. German students usually do a lot of extra-curricular things too, but all the organisations are a lot more independent; many people often do things in clubs which have nothing to do with the university at all. Again, it's more individual here and less a sense of community. I could not decide which is better...
Monday, July 9. 2007
I live quite near to a patch of green called the Westpark. It's nothing special, an ordinary city park with a couple of lakes and lots of grass, not something I'd show friends who are around to Munich for a weekend. Mostly residents go there to relax and sit in the sun, as I do sometimes. And yet, I believe it may be used to show some typical German characteristics.
The one thing that marks the place as typical German is, of course, the signs that are all over the place. I've never come across so many signs in one place even anywhere in Germany - it makes me re-think my rules hypothesis. Here's some of my favourites.
These were the first signs to get my attention: 'Tobogganing forbidden' and 'Tobogganing slope (Use at your own peril)'. The reason this caught my interest was the realisation that here people are told things when things are allowed and when they're forbidden. Usually, you'd expect one at put signs up for the other - or not?
By the way, I tried getting the slope on the picture so you could get an idea of the danger the tobogganing here implies. Clearly, these signs are manifested spoilsports - all the interesting signs had the 'Verboten' signs up.
Definitely one of my favourites: 'Model (RC) boats are permitted here'. A sign of German liberalism? Probably not, the second sign already restricts the first: 'Additional rules for the lake in the Westpark. Only boats with reasonable speed are permitted. The use of racing boats, i.e. boats which have the purpose of going a maximum speed, is forbidden. Acoustic add-ons like sirens or music from cassette recorders or similar is forbidden.' A speed limit for model boats?
Of course we can't have that much fun all over the place. It struck me that 'Verboten' must take an important place in tourist guides for Germany. Still, we supply life-belts for a pond which is at best waist-high... I'm not quite sure what the empty signs are for, but I imagine they can be used to flexibly forbid something else. The green sign on the bottom right intrigued me, as well. It doesn't simply forbid people to feed the animals, but with a high biological precision it explains why (e.g.: 'The higher output of excrement of the animals will over-fertilise the water with nitrates and phosphates. This will lead to a negative change of the water quality...' and so on.).
Protecting nature is obviously quite important. Here we're stopped from walking across a wetland - although it looks more like a place no-one could be bothered to mow. I also like the one on the right 'Don't go on the ice or into the reeds - water birds and fish need their peace'.
The grill zone! Everyone understands this sign. There is, however, no sign anywhere saying barbecues are forbidden. I suppose they expect residents to read the Münchner Grüngartenverordnung or whatever, because obviously barbecues need to be explicitly allowed. Don't tell me other countries do it the same way.
The one on the right goes on for ages why we need to be careful concerning all the nature. I've seen signs like these elsewhere - but I get the impression that here, they're actually read.
'Dogs are only permitted on the paths, on a not too long leash.'. I'm surprised the length isn't specified. By the way: when I took this picture, I was standing slightly clumsily on the path, leaning against my bike. Another biker dashed around the corner and nearly ran into me. He started swearing 'Oh putain... quel con!'. I thought this quite an amusing thing to happen as I was working on my former Marseille blog, so I took this as a good sign. I had so much fun in France, I'll take a few 'cons' without being offended  . It occurred to me that this guy might be the reason for the sign on the right, for which I had so far not found a use: 'Cyclists, go slowly! Dangerous curves! Take care of the pedestrians.' I tried getting some of the dangerous curves on the picture. This also was the only sign I could find with traces of vandalism, although some others were quite bent.
So, what does this mean? I don't really want to jump to conclusions, but one might interpret this as evidence that German's like their stuff well regulated. Perhaps - and this it not that unlikely - Bavaria is exceptionally German in this respect, although of course they'd never calls themselves German.
Sunday, June 17. 2007
Remember my entry on saying hi?
My favourite TV show about French/German inter cultural clashes (It's called Karambolage and can be seen every Sunday night on the French/German TV channel Arte) did their own version of my blog entry.
French version: http://sonix.sdv.fr:8080/ramgen/arte/karambolage/emission_118.rm
German version: http://sonix.sdv.fr:8080/ramgen/arte/karambolage/DE/karambolage_118.rm
Sorry, no English version...
Sunday, May 6. 2007
As to quote one of my favourite comedians, Bill Bailey. However, I have photographed a French kebab for you... because there are differences!
Yep, they really put chips in and serve it in a baguette.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
Saturday, April 7. 2007
You have to step back to see Marseille from it's beautiful side.
The first pic was actually taken from Marseille centre.
This one was taken from outside, on the right you can just about see the beginning of the sea. The cloud of pollution is also nicely to be seen.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
I still owe you some description of Marseille.
The most famous road in Marseille is the Canebière. It divides Marseille in north and south, there's a famous (French) song about it and it's right in the centre. It's also one of the few real tourist attractions.
It's not, however, very beautiful. Like most of the rest of the city it's half dug up and half full of rubbish. Too many cars, too. The city's attitude towards construction works seems to be something like this: Fence off everything that might be a construction site, then dig it up, then leave it as it is for ages. I think this is one of the few representative photos of Marseille centre you'll find on the web.
This is actually a road sign explaining the special rules for the bus that sells pizzas.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
For those who don't know the blog of my photographically very talented friend Hartmut, he came to visit me in Marseille during my last week and made some pictures (and uploaded them without asking for permission ).
Photos from Marseille start here, but I can recommend the rest just as much.
They mostly show our climbing tours, but also some pictures from the city and even one of our Ska band.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
The French cuisine has a very high reputation in Germany, definitely so near the border but probably all over. It's justified, French people just have loads of good ideas to turn loads of stuff (including some slimy little animals with a low speed or green ones with an affinity for jumping) into really classy meals. Some things, like cheese or wine are also a very important export factor.
The French know this. I'd bet that most restaurants are genuine French ones (sounds obvious, but how many restaurants you've been to actually serve and specialise on German or [put in own nationality] food?). However, I found the reputation slightly overrated. I suppose your average French full-time mum can still do the most wonderful things if you get invited around. Among students, I mostly saw the same affection for food as amongst German ones.
French wine selection is incredible. A huge French supermarket will have several kilometres of wine shelves, a full range of prices, regions and tastes. This is fine as long as you don't want any foreign wines. Some people French always think their wine is the best - I say they don't know there is any other. Amongst the aforementioned infinite lengths of shelves I spotted a section 'Produits du monde' (Products of the world), about 70cm wide. 70% of these wines were French, too (well, I suppose France is a part of the world), but no German or even South American ones to be seen. If I had to stick with one sort of wines for the rest of my life it would probably be French, but the world of wine would not be the same without a good Chilean, Spanish or German one.
The cheese however is unrivalled. The reason we get good cheeses in Germany is because we generally quite happily import stuff from all over the world (including vocab), but the first time I went to a German supermarket the shopkeeper and several employees came running to see if I was fine lying in front of the cheese counter, crying.
Funny French cuisine hasn't managed to be more successful outernationally. How many French restaurants do you know outside France? Yes, they exist - but in Germany they're way down the list after Italian, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mexican, Indian and probably even German. Well, they brought us the Crêpe.
As I wrote earlier, French bakers have an important role in their country. So, is the average French baker better than the German? NO, he's not. True, your baguette, croissant and pain-au-chocolat isn't the same here, but even the big baking chains smell wonderfully of brezels and good German bread, of which the variety is incredible. The first thing I bought here was half a loaf of bread which cost more than your average Döner Kebap and which still isn't empty even though I had some of it every night, enjoying it immensely.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
For those wondering what will happen to my blog: I'm not sure myself yet, but I've still got some stuff half-written which needs posting. So even from Germany my blog will go on for another bit. I might add some experiences from the other foreign country called Bavaria, but I'm not sure I can incite as much motivation as before.
In the long run, this blog will probably be discontinued (I will say so, though). I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in my scribblings. After my story about the French doctors, I had an incredibly high rate of readers, at least for my standards. If I stay motivated and there are enough interested readers, I might continue writing about intercultural observations.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
Last week-end I moved to Munich. Saturday morning I took the plane from Marseilles, had a brief stop at my parents to have a party with a couple of friends and Sunday evening I was in my new room in Munich. Monday I started working for Rohde & Schwarz, fulltime, after spending several weeks near-holiday to finish off my stay in France. This probably must have been the biggest change-to-time ratio I've ever had and I can't say it left me completely indifferent.
Being thrown from one city straight into another is probably the best way to get differences as clear as possible. And, as I had grown used to France and Marseilles I managed to get a look at Munich which is usually only possible to foreigners moving here.
I must say I really felt like moving a lot more than 1500km or whatever the distance is. In fact, I had to re-get used to Germany. Right at the beginning, there were two things I couldn't get right: traffic lights and cycle paths.
After half a year in Marseilles, my brain had adapted to filter out red lights from my field of vision or at least to treat them as a little warning ('careful, mate, there might be cars dashing out of some roads'). But here people seem religiously to obey the little red man. People who seemed otherwise quite normal and healthy were seriously stopping at an otherwise deserted junction, waiting for Mr Green to allow them to pass the following two and a half metres. The thing is: it is actually quite wise to do so - German drivers will dash across a crossing if they've got the green light. I had grown used to seeing red traffic lights as a kind of suggestion (the first time I hired a car in France I was seriously scared I'd treat the road like I did on my bike), but with an extra bit of watching the road.
Cycle paths, on the other hand, were something faint from the distant past to me. In Marseilles, they just don't exist and I assume no-one saw a point in creating some if half of the city's biking population was moving to Munich end of March 2007. So riding the bike was an adventure every day, involving dashing in between cars and buses, hopping on and off extremely high curbs, doing fast brakes and accelerations and generally living a bit like Tony Hawk (If you want to see a documentary about Marseillaise traffic, Taxi 4 is just coming to the cinemas). Here, I still have to find the road that doesn't have it's own lane for cyclists, but quite often I still speed along on the road amongst the cars making them wish this psychopath would stay on the, hum, cycle path.
Comparing Munich and Marseilles is quite a valid thing to do. They're both not state capitals (but regional ones), the still rank quite high up (Marseilles is France's second largest city, while Munich should be along the top five somewhere, but on the other hand is number one or two as a tourist's destination) and they are of similar size (both around 1,2 million population). They both start with an M (very important) and they both consist of former villages. The latter is something not apparent on the first sight in both cases, but still very true. I'm not 100% sure about Munich, but I think they have hometown-patriotism quite above the national average, which is definitely the case in Marseilles (which is quite remarkable as in France everyone seems to be mad about living in Paris). So I will be writing one of my last blog entries about Marseille by comparing it to Munich.
Getting here was a bit like moving to France. I arrived at the train station, I was early, I new nothing about the city, I couldn't understand a word people were saying (OK, I'm exaggerating. But the Bavarian accent is still quite a heavy one). I had a room somewhere but I still had to find it.
But much more than that, it was very, very different. Only when driving around these Bavarian streets I realised what a bustling city Marseilles had been. In comparison, Munich seemed to be a quiet little village. On the other hand, the last time I had thought a city was as clean as this was in Monaco. Not only were the Munich street cleaners obviously more effective (less strikes, probably) but also the average Münchner doesn't seem to chuck rubbish everywhere or let his dog crap all over the place, neither of which applies to a lot of Marseillaises. But not only the streets, everything else seemed to be neat and tidy, too. The city layout wasn't as chaotic, the tube stations were clean, the traffic was quite orderly and even the beggars looked more sympathetic and neat.
Tube stations. Or metro, U-Bahn, whatever you want to call them. The minute I stepped into one here I regretted not taking a picture in a Marseillais one for comparison. Karlsruhe only has trams, so my first personal metro system was the one in Marseilles, which consisted of two lines (the red and the blue one). Every station had security personnel with ferocious dogs, and more than once I saw them actually being needed. Stations are rubbish bins like the rest of the city. As they can't afford (don't want) to deal with security more than necessary, metro stops running at 21.00 during the week and 0.30 the week-end. After that it's 6 lines of night buses who get a 5-man police escort since a bus was burnt down.
This all came to me in a flash when I went down the stairs to my first Munich metro ride. Not even a cigarette butt was to be seen, the only thing that I immediately remarked was the sign with the Benutzungsordnung (rules of use). Good old Germany, I thought (by the way, that doesn't contradict what I wrote about rules before). The public transport network is excellent, well designed and goes everywhere all the time. The first time I went to the centre I was actually afraid I couldn't get back home again, but the U-Bahn seems to run long enough. One thing I was absolutely astonished to see were public toilets (free ones) in some stations. This was a concept I hadn't even dared thinking about, but I tried them and they were only one or two notches worse than the ones in my residence. But what I liked most was the sign on the toilet door: Bedürfnisanstaltbenutzungsordnung. I'm serious.
As for the people, I find them difficult to compare. I can't really say if the Marseillais had been a friendly lot or not. I must say I usually experienced a hospitality I would not have expected in Germany, and the mixture of France-Provence-North Africa you get in Marseilles generally provides a friendly and relatively tolerant mix. It happened to me that some kid from the street started talking to me, making sure I had a good impression of Marseilles even walking along with me for a bit before returning to his mates.
For some reason, I was surprised how friendly people in Munich are. I felt like being the 10000th customer when I got some groceries from Tengelmann the way I was treated. There's a lot of greeting and the Bavarian accent even adds some friendliness.
Even the city is friendly. It's obviously beautiful and well looked after. Marseilles has it's nice spots, too - but walk through the city centre and it looks like a dump, rubbish and dog crap wherever you can still walk with all those building sites. There's not a huge amount of green, probably because the mountains, the Calanques and the sea are all so close. Munich has the English Garden, the world's biggest city park (I've been told), the river Isar with it's beautifully restored riversides and lots of other parks.
However, I can see I'm starting to sound like a boring guide book, and I shouldn't: I've probably managed to experience one of the highest contrasts possible without leaving the continent.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
Sorry to use my otherwise more "cultural" blog for this kind of anti-advertisement. But I just need to put this somewhere...
OK, I must admit Ryanair has served me well so far. They serve Karlsruhe-Baden airport, which is really close to me and my parents, Marseilles and Stansted, all very useful. It's usually not too difficult to get decent prices for flights, even if this encourages people to be very un-ecological. So me and many people put up with a lot of stupid Ryanair regulations, which usually include paying for every single step you want to take extra (I'm surprised the toilets don't have a slot for coins, but that's probably international flight regulations). So, OK, I'm quite glad they're around - but if you want my advice: Don't buy Ryanair gift vouchers.
I like buying and booking online. You can do it anytime and it's usually fast and easy. However, I nearly bought a ticket without using the gift voucher I got for Christmas - because there's no place to enter gift voucher details.
This puzzled me, so I had a look on the voucher itself: To use it, you have to ring the Ryanair hotline - not quite an 0800 number. However, I tried - busy. Same the next couple of times. I decided to get the Germany and England hotline numbers too and ring them with my international phone card any time I see a phone box.
About one week later, I finally got through the first time. At the time, I was on a road trip with some friends so the only possibility was to use my mobile phone which uses prepaid credit. I had everything prepared, credit card, voucher code, flight details. The phone call took quite a while, and I wasn't exactly getting the impression the operator was trying to go full speed. When I finally got to where she was dictating me my confirmation code, my phone cut me off - no more credit. I had about 5€ left on my phone before that call. I immediately tried again with a friends phone, but - busy. I managed to check my emails that night and as I didn't have a confirmation e-mail, I assumed my reservation had been cancelled (which it had).
The next couple of days, I tried 3-4 times a day to ring them again, even though it was my holiday trip week. After that, my call frequency went down quite a lot, partly because my life doesn't really revolve around ringing expensive Ryanair hotlines. I once forgot to ring 2 days in row, imagine that.
About 2 weeks after my first call, I got through for the second time. I restarted the booking procedure, but found out my gift voucher had been blocked from the first time round. I explained why and the operator said she'd try and fix it and that I should call back in about 15 minutes, which was when my next class was about to start.
By this time the price for the flight had already increased by 8€, so I decided to come late for class. I called up again, and, surprisingly, got through pretty soon. I had 5€ left on my phone and tried to speed up the booking process by lying when possible. The dreaded warning sound that my credit was running out came up when the process was already quite far and my phone hung up on me exactly after the last letter of my confirmation code. The operator showed some common sense by not cancelling the flight this time - the confirmation code is not really necessary IMHO anyway as you get an email with your flight details. But hey, the flight was mine.
Summary:
Value of gift voucher: 25€
Amount of money I spent on calls: 15€
Increase in price during the procedure: 8€
Amount of money I actually gained: 2€
Time spent on my behalf: 1-2h on ringing tries during 4 weeks (imagine the time it costs to pay an engineer for 2hrs compared to 2€)
Annoyance this caused: priceless
Tuesday, March 6. 2007
Everyone knows French wines, or has at least heard of them. Wine is definitely the drink #1 in this country, and any good dinner is served with wine. Well, French beer would never get such a good reputation, but the wine is worth it, you have to admit.
In Marseille, however, it's the Pastis. If you go into a pub here you'll see more of this funny liquid being served than wine, rivalled only by beer (a Heineken or something German if you're lucky). I've gotten quite fond of it and the fact that I sometimes randomly carry a bottle of ready-mixed Pastis around and get annoyed when I don't have any left has given me some reputation with my ERASMUS-friends so they take it in turns to check on me if I have to be taken into some kind of therapy.
The best Pastis (by vote of anyone I've talked about this so far) is the Ricard, which, like all real Pastis', comes straight from Marseille (note that I'm mixing some other people's opinion into my post here). However, there's many different kinds and most of them really come from here.
It is usually served in a high, not very wide glass and mixed with water about 4-5:1. Interestingly, although the Pastis itself is transparent, it becomes opaque when mixed with water for a chemical reason I really couldn't care less about (that's the Marseille influence that is).
It is based on anise (like Ouzo, which I don't like that much though) and was apparently invented when Absinthe was banned in France.
The amount of Pastis I consume here justifies writing about it, I think. Pastis goes well as an Apéritif, as an afternoon drink, as a starter drink for bar nights...
So if anyone feels like having a glass with me, just come around! Or have one at your place and tell me when, I'll have a remote drink with you.
Cheers!
Monday, March 5. 2007
Seems I'll be leaving France quite soon. I should be signing my contract for an internship right now, but I can't find a printer that actually works anywhere here. So for those who aren't just here to read stuff about France: Starting April 2nd I'll be working in Munich for Rohde & Schwarz for 5 months before going back to Karlsruhe to finally finish my degree.
I suppose this might confuse some people: yes, the plan was definitely to stay in France for a internship as well. Starting last year, I applied to a couple of jobs in France but got refused on all of them. I decided to apply in Germany too, as a backup. The job offer I got from this company in Munich was really very good so I went for it.
So in order to avoid any rumours: I could have found a decent job in France, maybe even Marseille, even decently paid. But I didn't look that hard. Call me lazy if you want. The other part of the truth is that even if I will be missing Marseille a lot I wanted to move around bit, too. Moving back to Germany wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but Munich is a cool city (I've been told) and I'd have trouble finding a job as good as this one.
So, I'll try to get some more articles on line before moving, and I might even continue afterwards (Bavaria is foreign enough for me... for a start, I can understand the people about as much as I can understand the Marseillais).
So, what's coming? Well, I won't promise anything, but I haven't really presented the city a lot so I'll try and show you ma ville. I've got some more ideas but I'm not going waste my precious little rest of time in front of my computer.
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