Getting settled in Germany

University of Mannheim

My name is Tanor Johnson, and I am a Junior with a finance concentration in the Foster School. I am currently spending spring semester at the University of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany. Mannheim is a great city with plenty to do. It is fairly large with the University and the train station being the two main areas of the city. So far my time here in Germany has been a blast. Classes are much different than at UW and many of them only meet once a week. Because my schedule allows me to have Thursdays and Fridays off, I have been able to take weekend trips to many places.

I am living in a student dorm “Am Steingarten” which is about a 10 minute bus ride from campus. There is a good mix of German, Polish, American, Turkish, and other students living in my dorm. It was tough at first to get around the city and ask for directions, but after a short period of time you get the hang of where things are and how to ask the basics in German. The school has a student organization called VISUM that plans parties, dinners, day trips, pub crawls, and weekend activities all throughout the semester. You receive an entire semester schedule of these events and it makes meeting international students extremely easy and fun. Many of the parties are held in the University, which is a big baroque palace.