Thomas Holbach

My first semester is over. During the last months I had the chance to experience life as a student at the Westfalian-Wilhelms-University in Münster, which is the last university left without tuition fees in the county of Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Last summer my plans were completely different: I wanted to do a two-year-lasting vocational training as a photo-journalist in one of the most famous press agencies in Germany. But somehow God had other plans with me and wanted me to become a political anglicist or an English politician… whatever in Münster - I had to find a flat in Münster immediately, when I got to know that the press agency wouldn’t take me, because Münster was the only university that was interested in me, in my “Plan B” (which meant studying instead of taking photos).

I found a flat in Coerde, a part of Münster that is about 5km far from the center. Finding a flat and moving was done within a week, and especially my mother was not too happy about this sudden change.
My time in Münster started and it was great to have my own home, with two flate-mates. At university we were introduced to our faculties, but unfortunately I missed the Anglistics-introduction-week somehow, which was a big disadvantage because I didn’t become acquainted to too many people during the whole semester.
Introduction to political science was great, people were friendly and cared as much as they were able to.
In addition to my 2-subjects-Bachelor-subjects I took part in a Lithuanian course. It was necessary to do a general-education course during one’s studies, and you had the choice between languages and “how-to-do-slides”-courses. Milda gave me a book called “Introduction to Lithunian grammar of conversation” long time ago, and I thought it might be fun to delve into this, very special, language.
After a short time I recognized that Anglistics might be the wrong studies, and unfortunately, because of the standardization to Bachelor- and Master-studies in Europe, I, now, have to wait until winter to be able to change my studies. What a waste of time!
Anglistics, consisted for me of three courses during this semester: literal- and cultural studies, English language history (last friday I wrote my exam! wooho!) and a course named “Spoken English”. What have I learnt this semester? Nearly nothing - except some information on English language history - which was really my favourite session at university (in Anglistics).

Political science was definetely the right choice. Nearly every session was interesting, tutorials were great, and people were much friendlier.
Lithuanian was the best course: It consisted of three students plus our lecturer - it’s an exclusive relation of lecturer to students. Though I don’t “need” to go further next year, it’s a deep wish to continue my studies here.

Münster as a city is nice, but small, narrow-minded and fresh-water. I’m heading for moving to another place in Münster. Coerde is not the place that I imagined, thinking of a fancy new life as a student. My neighbours Elisabeth, Eva and Malte made me stay longer in Coerde than I wanted to. But this month I’m going to terminate my rental-agreement.

It took a long time to change my point of view - after the refusal of Plan A, I was quite sad and was somehow not able to cotton on to Plan B. I had the chance to work as a freelancer for a local newspaper, but after all, I think Münster’s media selection is not what I expected. During my first try to take photos for them, I somehow managed to fuck up my father’s lense. (I already did this to a lense of the press agency during my internship there - maybe that was the reason why they didn’t take me.)

All in all, life is nice in Münster, studying is interesting - and I’m looking forward to testing some other faculties during my next semester, to find out, what I’m going to start in winter. I’m looking forward to moving to a place which is more central, and I’m sure that Münster won’t be the place where I’ll spend the rest of my (student’s) life.