Blogging
From Abroad

“You know, at the beginning of the semester the lecture halls are often over crowded. But as this is a university and you are students you can choose whether to show up, or not. Only a few of your courses will require compulsory attendance…” These words were spoken to my university’s freshmen last year by the vice-rector.

I think this is a nice introduction to the topic I want to cover today: the basic organisation of lectures. A student at an Austrian university is much more on his/her own, s/he is responsible and in charge of organising subjects, exams, funding and virtually everything you can think of. And I know that posts without pictures are boring, so I’ll polish it with some images from my university, the BOKU in Vienna

We have a winter and a summer semester. The winter semester starts at October, 1st and usually last until the end of February. Summer semester takes from the beginning of March until the end of June. But our university weeks are pretty often interrupted by holidays. Every student should definitely attend the first meeting of a course, but isn’t a problem ‘cause they normally start in the second week of the semester.

In this first meeting you can learn what you need to do to earn your credits. Some require to write a seminar thesis some a lab-lectures with mandatory attendance. But at an estimated 70% of our courses you can choose whether to show up or to use the beautiful weather for a mountain bike trip. However, all off these courses do have a final exam (but usually no midterms) and you need to be able to answer the questions. And it won’t be easier if you didn’t hear the professor’s explanations. But, believe me, it is doable. I once made an exam for a 2 credits forestry class, where I saw the professor at the exam for the first time. This was possible to because he provided comprehensive lecture notes and I spent quite a few hours in the library ahead to the exam.

There is, by the way, no need to make the exam at a certain date at my university. For every class without compulsory attendance there have to be at least three possibilities per semester to take the exam. In my special case – I’m majoring in wood science that is a very small field of study – I normally just write an email to the professor, that I would like to take the exam within the next two weeks. That usually works.

The biggest advantage of this system is enormous flexibility. If you want to take off a week course you feel, that you should travel to Venice with you girlfriend, no problem! Have fun. If you just don’t understand the subject and you need longer. Hey, no problem. Postpone your exam or just repeat it a year later.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But – as always – there is another side of the coin, too. As you can imagine, it’s easy to loose track if you’re absent too often. And just like students care less about the classes, professors do too. As mentioned in an earlier post, the organization of classes is considerably better here, compared to back home. But to be honest, I prefer to choose by myself if I need to go to class, or not.