FUBiS

I really enjoyed spending time with my classmates during the FUBiS program. Of course, taking classes together was an important part of the experience, but what I remember most are the moments we shared outside the classroom. Visiting the Olympic Park together was especially interesting because we were able to see an important part of Berlin while also spending time as a group. I also really enjoyed our trip to Potsdam. Walking around the city, seeing new places, and talking with my classmates made the trip feel very special. One of my favorite moments was going to a beer garden together after exploring Potsdam. We had time to relax, talk, laugh, and get to know each other better in a more casual atmosphere. These experiences made my time at FUBiS much more enjoyable and memorable, and I think they were a great opportunity to become closer to the people I met during the program.

Overall, I really enjoyed the summer courses. The teachers were very nice, and the courses very interesting. The field trips and class excursions helped me a lot in learning about local history and culture.

When I first arrived alot had happened that caused me to be stressed and regret ever going abroad, but the Fubis staff was there to help me refind my footing, with quick responses to pressing questions, fun experiences that allowed me to temporarily forget my worries, a counselor to help me work through my problems and find solutions to balance my mental health. The dorms also had a great vibe, full of friendly people that built a great community I don’t think I could have survived without.

My time at the FUBiS program at Freie Universität Berlin was an amazing experience. It was not just about studying—it was a truly special time that opened my eyes to the world and gave me memories I will treasure forever. First of all, the academic part of the program was wonderful. The classes had a very well-structured curriculum, which made learning both clear and exciting. The professors were passionate and encouraging, so I was able to enjoy every single lecture without feeling overwhelmed. Active class discussions and well-planned activities helped me stay fully engaged and learn a lot in a short amount of time. Beyond the classroom, the best part of the program was meeting wonderful people from all over the world. We had great discussions in class, and after school, we explored Berlin together. Talking with friends from different countries and sharing our daily lives helped me learn so much about various cultures and broad worldviews. Also, Germany’s location in Europe was perfect for traveling! Thanks to its central position, my new friends and I were able to take exciting weekend trips to neighboring cities and countries. Traveling together, seeing new places, trying local food, and making great memories was pure happiness. Even though I was far from home, I felt so happy and comfortable because I had such kind and fun friends around me. Making friends from around the world, taking well-organized classes, and traveling across Europe made my FUBiS journey an unforgettable gift. If you want to experience great education, meet fantastic people, and enjoy traveling, I highly recommend the FUBiS program!

I have had a pleasurable time so far enrolled in the FUBiS summer program with FU Berlin. A well organized program in which I feel supported by their team. My courses are quite in depth for just 1 term of instruction and I feel I am learning a lot. I really enjoy excursion days, through them I have gotten to know the city a lot more and spent quality time considering my class topics. They are always available to help which has been a positive experience for me!

I think Fubis has been amazing. The whole university has made me feel a lot of things. Their teachers and professors are so nice and intelligent while the program is nuts. I do feel I have learned a lot from Fubis and from Berlin. I hope I could come back again in the future.

My experience at FUBiS has been amazing. The hole organization team was available in every moment, I appreciate all the activities that they proposed to us during the Term III. Particularly I liked the "Pathways to a better future" classes because of the professor's experience and topic knowledge. I knew Berlin as a tourist but coming here for a full month was a really nice and new experience for me. The experience of sharing dorm and being surrounded by people of different nationalities was the best part of this time and I hope to do not forget the amazing moments that I have had with the ones that now I can call, my new friends.

My experience in Germany is pretty new and interesting for me. Germany is an interesting country which gives me a very different experience. I enjoyed the boat trip on fhe Spree River, and every field trip of my courses. Although my German class is difficult for me, I really enjoy this lesson and try my best to overcome the challenges.p

I have never left my own country before but Berlin is somewhere I have always dreamed of. I knew I had to come here and when I saw this exciting opportunity to study right in Berlin with Fubis, I knew I had to take it. I reached out for support with the lovely team and they were so kind and helpful into making sure I was prepared. Whilst here I have engaged in a subject I’m passionate about with Dr Waite who clearly loves what he does and encourages us to physically engage with our learning through excursions and encouraging us to travel. He has been a highlight of this program and those excursions will stay with me for life. I have had endless opportunities to see and do things in Berlin and Germany as a whole and I feel completely satisfied with how I’ve spent my time and how the program went. You learn things quickly because people are there to guide you, your first experiences shopping for example can be nerve wracking if you don’t know the language but you work it out and within weeks it becomes second nature to you. I wish my time here didn’t have to end, I have completely fallen in love with this city. I think there’s a deep part of me that doesn’t want to leave Berlin but all that does is make me certain I will return here. What an epic experience, I loved this 6 week program. Thank you to all the staff and support and of course to Dr Waite for his energetic and cheery demeanour and his ability to talk about the hard topics while remaining passionate about what he does. I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life!

FUBiS is just amazing. Not only do you have an excellent academic experience but you also get to meet students from all over the world in a wonderful city that has too much to offer. I fully recommend the course Law Politics and Society with professor Hartnell and this experience will definitely open your mind and you won't regret it.

The FUBiS program is definitely not one to miss. From beginning to end, FUBiS worked with the students to find the best possible accommodations and staff were always available to help answer questions or help with any problems. The term pace had a good rhythm to it, and FUBiS professors prepared their students well for immersion into the culture and course material. And, when it comes to Berlin, I can't recall ever being in a place so rich with historical significance and pure urban beauty. The city landscape and her people were not just a supplementary to the academics at the Freie Universitaet, but could stand alone as their own sort of a learning experience. I'd never had the opportunity to travel until studying abroad this past summer, and thanks to FUBiS, I had the experience of a lifetime.

It was really good to be part of FUBiS Winter Term 2015. I studied Law, Society and Politic in a comparative perspective. The subject and the professor were awesome. We had good articles to read and we debated during the classes. The professor was really good. She encouraged us to participate and share our backgrounds which was interesting. Therefore, we did two visitations (one current German prison and one museum that was used to be a URSS prison) and it was incredible, really touching. Although there were students from different countries (South Korea, Colombia and Brazil), it would be better if there were more diversity. My apartment was located next to the university, but far from Berlin downtown. At the same time, Berlin has a good public transport and the city is amazing. I do recommend this exchange to my friends.

The three-week exchange program provided by FUBiS Winter Term I 2015 has been a wonderful experience that I am glad to share and recommend. In order to tell you a little bit about my own thoughts regarding the course as a whole, I will divide this short report in paragraphs as the following: a view on Berlin and its special characteristics; living in Berlin as an exchange student and the social life; the academic experiences; the extracurricular activities related to FUBiS; and closing remarks. Before going over these topics, I would like to deeply thank FUBiS staff for their hard-work and care throughout the program, as well as the Association of Supporters of Freie Universität Berlin, Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft, which granted me a scholarship and therefore handled me the opportunity to live all the experiences presented ahead. “Berlin is a city of stories unnoticed”. This phrase came to my mind after trying hard to summarize my feelings about the place where 2015 started to me and which will have impact on my whole year and life. The phrase is based on Gay Talese’s article “New York is a city of things unnoticed”, which I love and remembered a lot throughout FUBiS Term I 2015. Every corner, every brick of Berlin is a must-see. However, the difference between Berlin to New York, São Paulo and many other megalopolises in the world is that you will not know Berlin by just visiting the touristic spots, which are mapped and stressed in any good city guide. The real beauty of Berlin and its places is not their architecture, their superficial history, or the jewels and paintings they have inside; but rather their underlined story, the incredible past they went through as Germany has been stage for most of the best and worst historical events in the world. It is a city of the extremes and the details, where two identical cathedrals sit side by side; where the university that held professors such as Marx and Einstein is at the same place in which "the biggest library" of Germany was located and there was the historic burning of hundreds of thousands of "un-German" books by the Nazi government; where the Berlin Free University has as its founding departments the quite American Benjamin Franklin U. Hospital and Henry Ford Buildings. In which the place Hitler killed himself is nothing but an open area parking lot. In this amazing city, I had the possibility to get in contact with quite different languages, art expositions, museums, memorials, theaters, sculptures, monuments, flea markets, walking tours, pubs, parties, cafés and even the Bundestag, the former concentration camp of Sachesenhausen and a currently activated prison. From the diversity of those activities and people I met by attending them, I felt that being in Berlin allows you to Name: Allan Greicon Macedo Lima. Course Subject: Law, Politics and Society in Comparative Perspective. University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. have a taste of the whole Europe, as people from throughout the continent were living and/or traveling to the capital of Germany in the cold end of December and January. Additionally, I was somehow connected to the past and the future as the city has so many memorials and historical places; this experience was intensified by the fact that I could see many friends I met in the past few years who now live in Berlin or had a trip to visit me there. As I mentioned, FUBiS is a quite holistic experience and the classes I took were not disconnected to the reality I was living in. We have discussed, over the near 50 hours of intense classes, many difficult and varied issues related to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, sociological theories and political regimes. Then, we would often go over current events and discuss them according to what we have read. For example, one day before the tragedy in France regarding the deaths in Charlie Hebdo and at the same week of demonstrations of Bärgida in Berlin, we had discussed in class how the so called Anti-Islamization groups could be spreading in Europe. Another case was the discussion over death penalty and the criminal or restitutive aspects of law, which occurred just after the first Brazilian was ever punished by death sentence, in or out of Brazil (this capital punishment was held in Indonesia). Apart from the interesting academic bibliography, it is worthy saying that the places we visited within my program schedule were great. We went to the Berlin- Hohenschönhausen Memorial, on the site of the main political prison of the former East German Stasi, and our guide was actually an ex-prisoner who tried to escape from East Berlin in 1978. We also visited JVA Tegel prison, the second biggest institution considering the number of closed execution prisoners in Germany. These visits had deep impact on my views over justice and history, as well as made me analyze or reanalyze pieces of our reality I am used to just taking for granted. As a conclusion to this short, but sincere and hopefully useful article, I can just say FUBiS is a really worthy experience, mainly if the student has a positive attitude towards the events and challenges intrinsic to an exchange program. Participating in the activities already planned and whatever shows up in a city such as Berlin is a life enriching opportunity and I hope to go back to Berlin soon for other courses and to meet some great friends again!

My experience in FUBiS was excellent. I took a subject course, Law, Society and Politics in a Comparative Perspective. The quality of the class was outstanding, the teacher, Prof. Helen Hartnell is a great one, with deep knowledge on Sociolegal Studies, open to discussion and interested in each student's point of view on the topics we debated. The FUBiS staff was very helpful as well, they did everything they could for assuring us a good stay in Berlin, they also organized several excursions and activities for us. Berlin is an amazing city to be, it is clearly a good choice if you want to explore a historical place that also has a vibrant and hip way of life.

I went to term I 2015 of the FUBIS program. From the very beginning until the end, my time in Berlin was amazing. I took German language classes in the A1 level. My teacher was great and made me feel very comfortable from the very first day, his classes where very dynamic and full of exciting things to learn. The staff was full of kind people which were always willing to help you with anything. The campus was really nice and the apartment they arranged for me was good too. Also, the staff organized a couple of really fun excursions and activities to learn more about the city and our fellow students. But I think the best part was being able to meet people from all over the world and know more about their countries and cultures. No doubt that in Berlin I had one of the best experiences in my life, both academic and social.

Memorable experience? Watching the World Cup matches! I chose this program because the price was around what I was looking for and the academics offered appealed to me. I stayed with a wonderful host family in a beautiful home in Lichterfelde. Unfortunately, the house was located about 30mins away by bus from the campus and 40-60 mins by train from the downtown area and East Berlin for the nightlife. Luckily, the house was down the street from the single apartments, which were also close to a train station. Finding transportation was convenient but not quick.

FUBiS was a fantastic program for me! I originally looked for a longer program, but decided on the six week Term II to give myself time to travel before and after the program. The orientation was a great place to meet people and make friends. Luckily, most of the classes took place in the same building on the same schedule, allowing us all to mingle with other classes. The program takes their academics seriously, but it is definitely much more relaxed than a normal summer course in the USA. The teachers were extremely friendly and always were available for help as needed. The main Freie building is very modern and filled with students even during the summer. The excursions were in theory a good idea, but they were not what I expected. Its much more fun and beneficial for you to do your own trips on the weekends instead of the organized ones.

In January 2014 I had the great opportunity to participate in the Freie Universität Berlin International Summer and Winter University (FUBiS) Term I 2014. The program took place from January 4 until January 25, 2014 and I took part in the course “European Studies“ with Professor Ulrich Brückner. My time in Berlin was really enriching, both academically and personally. The “European Studies” course was very interesting and it sure did add a lot to my formation as an International Relations student. It was great being able to relate content learnt back home at my university with the classes in Berlin. In class, we had the opportunity to make individual presentations and discussions, which allowed each student to show his own point of view and also get to know the others better. Another great aspect of my FUBIS experience was having met so many different and amazing people. Because of FUBIS I now have friends all over the world. The course brought together people from different countries and backgrounds, which made us deal with these differences and also learn a lot with them. The daily basis contact with the other students in class and in the accommodation was a unique aspect of my FUBIS experience. For me as a student the whole FUBIS program was really well organized since the subscription of the application until now (and I believe ever). We constantly received very informative emails which directed us what to do and when as well as the excursions, which went perfect. Besides, I was always well advised by the FUBIS Team, who was always were always very helpful and nice. I had already been in Berlin before and I have always loved the city’s atmosphere. Being able to visit Germany’s capital again was great (even with the freezing temperatures!). I think Berlin is a great city for students and hope to come back as one as soon as possible. I’m looking forward to studying in Germany soon. Besides, I also aim to attend other FUBIS courses in the future. It was certainly an unforgettable experience, which allowed me to learn a lot and also have lots of fun.

A well-organized program that offers both intensive and non-intensive German language programs. I did the intensive German intermediate program. I thought it was helpful in improving my grammar in general, but not necessarily my communication skills. Probably this was a result of how the classes were designed.