Monday was the orientation day for the the first semester students, being an exchange student, that meant I was included. Looking at the program, I was glad I was studying Maschinenbau because several other Hauptfachen (majors) had to start at 8:30, while i didn't have to until 10:15. More sleep for me! They went over stipends, equality, the career center, university sports and fitness, student services and the student union. I arrived sometime before 10 and was surprised to see quite a few seats filled. A few of the later students were showing up with HS Mannheim bags and red boxes. I was afraid that they might run out of the gifts to the students, but waited to find the "gifts" until after the discussion. I also found out there are only 5% girls in ME here compared to 9% or so in the US.
Of course, I should have realized, they were more organized than I expected. They checked off your name from a list to make sure that everyone got a box and a bag. All the stuff they gave us was great! A welcome letter from the mayor, a nice map that shows where good places to eat are, and popular places for students, free coupons, enough pens for at least rest of the year, a laserpointer with extra batteries, a screwdriver that looks like a pen, lots of sticky notes, grid paper, hole puncher/ ruler combo, mints, two free mugs, and a free messenger bag that's pretty decent quality. I think it will be good if I end up taking any weekend trips somewhere.
It was then time to eat. I wandered over to the Mensa and ordered a delicious meal (they make such great food!) which consisted of potatoes, a basil (maybe) sauce, and a fried home-made veggie patty thing which came with a noodle soup and green beans. All this for 2,60, more than in Bremen, but I feel like the food is a little better, and the schools are definitely different sizes. Once I got my food, I sat down next to another out-land student. He's from Costa Rica, and I feel bad because I always forget his name, but he's very kind and easy to talk to.
After lunch, I went to the Mechanical Engineering specific orientation, which had a lot to do with your basis semesters that set you up for higher up classes, like the American core classes, which had nothing to do with me since I've been there, and done that. While the professor finished the presentation, the fire alarm went off. There were a lot more people than I was expecting in that building on a day that wasn't a school day. However, after a little bit, he dismissed us with that and I went home, where I continued at looking and checking on classes. After all, I had an appointment with Professor Schad later that day to discuss classes. I so glad everything was finally going to work out!
I arrived and showed him and the two Caizzio brothers the classes that I was thinking about taking, and then for 10 minutes the three of them looked at the classes and the times and suggested I take Thermodynamiks, Technische Mechaniks 3 ~ Dynamics, Fertigverfahren 1, CATIA (CAD class), a German class, and potentially Betriebsorganisation ~ Company Organisation (I also wanted to take Werkzeugmaschinen ~ Instrumentation), and maybe Schweisstechnik ~ welding class. I was excited that I finally knew what I was going to take! And one of them was an advanced Computer Aided Design class!
(More stuff I received, pens included. - Also, I couldn't help but take a picture of this beer bottle because it's from the Simpsons! I don't think it's a real bier...)
I get home, plug them all into the schedule system to find that there were several conflicts between the classes. It was little frustrating that after all of that, I still didn't know what I wanted. I ended up prioritizing and skipped going out with Rachel and Trevor. My schedule was condensed down to 5 classes, I couldn't take FV 1, CATIA, or Schweisstechnik. I was a little disappointed, but it would be easier with fewer classes.
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