Comparing LMU and Fudan studying life

I have been studying in LMU since the end of September. As an exchange student, my study tasks here are not so heavy. I only chose four courses, two courses for exchange students, one for bachelors and the other for graduates. During studying the two academic courses, I really realized the difference between LMU study life and Fudan study life.

(A picture taken at the library when it was snowing)

First of all, LMU has different course types, including Seminar, Lecture, HauptSeminar. Based on different course types, you can have a certain understanding of the content and requirements of the course before the course selection. But at Fudan University, we divide the course according to the credit requirements, such as compulsory courses, that is, everyone must choose. And we have a list of elective courses, which you can choose based on personal preference, but the final elective course credits must meet certain requirements. Therefore, before choosing a course, you are not well aware of how the course will be conducted. Most of time the course introductions are too general. So generally speaking, we will choose to ask the senior schoolmates who has chosen the course before to know the specific class format and course tasks of this course, then we can know whether this course is difficult for us.

Second, LMU courses have more material to read. I chose a graduate course “Measuring the audiences”. The course has a weekly reading list. There are dozens of pages of materials for us to read every week, and we need to discuss them on the course. We also need to take turns to prepare presentations based on these reading materials. At Fudan, there are not so many courses with this kind of high-intensity reading requirements. The journalism history course in my first year had almost the same intensity. In that class, we need to read dozens of pages of materials per week, and we still need to discuss in class. Since I only chose a postgraduate course, I am not so clear about the general situation. If every LMU graduate course has such a high reading intensity, I assume that LMU graduate students should be much more stressed than Fudan graduate students.

Finally, the final paper of LMU course basically requires you to complete a comprehensive study. For my two academic courses, all final essays require you to do a complete case study independently. You need to decide your study areas, topic, research questions and research methods, and you need to complete the research yourself. In Fudan, in fact, most of our paper assignments are theoretical papers. Most of the time, you are doing research based on literature. The content of the paper is mainly your summary of the literature research and your conclusions/discoveries based on the reality.

Since I haven’t chosen many course, the above comparison may be inaccurate. But it is clear that there are indeed many differences in the learning life between China and Germany. I would admit that Germany learning style is a little tough for me but at the same time it’s better for students to improve their research skills. In a word I get both pains and happiness to be able to experience different ways of learning in Munich and to practice case studies in Munich to write paper. Undoubtedly, my knowledge, my vision, my learning methods, etc. have been greatly improved here.

(A picture taken at the English Garden)

Thanks everything. LMU.