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NYU Students Take Over Cologne
This past weekend, most of our group went on an NYU trip to Cologne (in German, it's called Köln). NYU set up a partnership with the University of Cologne between our program and one of theirs. We basically take turns showing each other the cities that we're studying in and discussing various aspects of German vs. American culture, language, politics, and lifestyles. One of our classes prepared presentations on these various topics, as did the class from Cologne. Over this past weekend, half the presentations were done in their school. In the first weekend of December, the Cologne students will come to Berlin and we'll finish the other half of the presentations. I'm going next month - my topic is education and student life in the U.S. and specifically NYU. (While I'm talking about this, is there anything that you think is absolutely essential to mention? I want to make sure I'm not missing something glaringly obvious and important)
Der Dom: The Cologne Cathedral The city is along the Rhine River in West Germany. It's about a 4 1/2 hour train ride to get there directly from Berlin. The term "city" is used loosely, in my opinion. By German standards, it's for sure a city. I mean, it does have almost a million people, but it's not nearly as spread-out as Berlin. Perhaps it is for this reason that the areas we spent most of our time in felt younger and more close-knit. Most of the crowds who were out in bars or on the trams were in their mid-20s, which seems to be normal university age in Germany. A lot of the venues cater to students - for example, the Cologne students took us out to a club one night called "Studenten Club", where they played almost entirely early-90's American pop hits. Yep, even Backstreet Boys. My "guide" from the program (who is actually 31) said that it's THE place for first-semester students and he couldn't believe he was back there.
Going from New York to Berlin wasn't such a difficult transition except for the language barrier. However, the trip from Berlin to Cologne was much more different. Most parts of Berlin are not accommodating to students, except for the areas immediately surrounding the universities. Even the Village right around NYU has more of a college feel because of the cheap restaurants, coffee shops, salad bars and Campus Cash signs. Berlin doesn't have this same strong presence of students. The main part of Cologne, on the other hand, was filled with students about our age. It was startling, but also really comforting to be surrounded by students for a weekend. All in all, I loved the trip, and I for sure recommend making a stop in Cologne.
NYU life
Well, if you're going to be talking about NYU student life, perhaps the place to start is "Gossip Girls," in which the girls are now NYU freshmen (one is even "going" to Gallatin). Separating TV reality from actual NYU reality, however, may require some homework. For more, check out this blog, and this post on Place Studies. On another topic, here's a post about the value of NYU and another on NYU slang. Good luck.
I had similar feelings when I
I had similar feelings when I went to Oxford this past weekend. Though not because Florence lacks of a strong presence of students. On the contrary, there are almost too many students... students who are mostly all American. So when I went to Oxford University and was surrounded by only British students, that was a really nice change of scenery from all the American students and foreign tourists that I've become so accustomed to here in Florence. And it made the whole Oxford experience feel more authentic as well as more relate-able; being led around by British students. I'm glad you had such a positive experience in Cologne! Makes me want to go visit one day.