Germany vs. USA: The Differences, The Final Chapter

In this part I will focus on what you are have the most interested in, the differences outside of school, like laws or hobbies and how German students are spending their free time besides clubs or teams. I will also show you how I got the idea to come here to the US to spend a whole year in a completely different environment.

What and how do German students spend their Weekend?

Free time is something very valuable for German students. Since they spent a lot of time at school and studying, they enjoy the time they have off. Things that are common in Germany are meeting friends, doing hobbies like riding a bike or going to swim, or spending time with your girl or boyfriend. Overall, typical teenager stuff. Of course we have parties over in Germany, but most of them are in clubs and not house parties, since you are allowed to enter some clubs at the age of 16 with the permission of your parents. You are allowed to stay there until 12 p.m. until you are under 18. Once you are 18 you can basically do what you want. One difference is that if you are under 18, you are not allowed to drive a car.  Since we have a good public transport system over in Germany, along with the rest of Europe, it is not that much of a problem.

How does Family and School support the German student?

For students it is very important that they are supported by their family. Since they have a lot of pressure at school, it is hard to handle your life without any help. I would have never been able to go the US without the support of my family. I know some people that did not get this kind of support and they collapsed and eventually repeated the grade or even changed schools which is sad.To support its students, my school offers help to the students in several ways. We have people you can talk to if you have problems. These people are not some kind of teacher, but trained in supporting people. They are not allowed to tell anybody anything without permission, so you do not have to worry about that.

Students really appreciate these offers and they use them. I do not think that I know anybody that did not use the opportunity to get help.

Globalization at its finest?

Overall, I do not think that German students are not too different from American students. A lot of the things like how some schools look like or what people are doing in their free time, I already knew before I arrived in America were from social media like Facebook, Twitter ,and YouTube. You can get a good amount of information about what people are doing here and how they do it. I realized that soon after I arrived here. It is nothing too exotic, still there are differences but I really believe that Germany and America are becoming more and more similar to each other, thanks to social media. In some points, it does not even feel like, that I would be in the US. Some areas are looking like places in Europe. This is sometimes frightening.

Still there are myths and lies. Of course you hear a lot of myths over in Europe, about what things are like in America. Even though times have changed and Germany and the US came closer, there are still unclear things. For example most facts that I knew about America were from media. There are  actually two people that I know over here in the US that I have talked to from Germany, using Skype or Facebook, but of course we were not spending too much time talking about our countries, but it was a help before I left. These guys were also the ones that encouraged me to eventually say that I want to go to America. Sadly, I hadn’t much contact with them, but they know that I am here.

Conclusion-What is left to say?

If I would need to summarize what I told you, I would say that there are differences, but these are really small. Of course the language is not the same, but the mentality of people living here is very similar to the one in Europe, even though I think Americans are more friendly and open minded, meeting open minded and friendly people is really weird if you are not used to it. In Germany it is unlikely, that someone that you barely know is walking up to you, shake hands with you, or hugging with you.

However, I like how people are here, and I think thanks to exchange programs, like the one I am participating in, the people of the world are getting the opportunity to learn from each other about their culture, and their lifestyle. I bet if one of you would go to Europe, you would not need much time to get used to the environment and the people.

I am very glad, that the people here accepted me so fast, and I have really enjoyed my time here so far.

That was it from my side. I hope that you guys learned, at least a little bit, about my country and that you enjoyed reading my impressions. I arrived only a few weeks ago, so it would be nice to have more information for you, maybe there will be more, so stay tuned and check out Lincoln Lion Tales frequently if I got your interest.

Mit diesen Worten beende ich meinen Artikel und hoffe ihr hattet Spaß beim lesen!

(With these words, I end my article and hope you enjoyed reading it!)